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# UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 



HOR^ SUBSECIV^!. 



11 A lady, resident in Devonshire, going into one of her parlors, dis- 
covered a young ass, who had found his way into the room, and carefully 
closed the door upon himself He had evidently not been long in this sit- 
uation before he had nibbled a part of Cicero's Orations, and eaten 
nearly all the index of a folio edition of Seneca in Latin, a large part 
of a volume of La Bruyere's Maxims in French, and several pages of 
Cecilia. He had done no other mischief whatever, and not a vestige re- 
mained of the leaves that he had devoured." — Pierce Egan. 



rt The treatment of the illustrious dead by the quick, often reminds me 
of the gravedigger in Hamlet, and the skull of poor defunct Yorick." — 
W. H. B. 

" Multi ad sapientiam pervenire potuissent, nisi se jam pervenisse 
putassent.' 11 

" There's nothing so amusing as human nature, but then you must have 
some one to laugh with. 11 



2- '// <f 







By JOHN BROWN, M. D. 



■ 









1 



If thou be a severe sour-complexioned man, then I here disallow thee to be 
a competent judge. — Izaak Walton 




BOSTON 
TICKNOR AND FIELDS 

1862 









Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1861, by 

TlCKNOR AND FIELDS, 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the District of Massachusetts. 



riverside, Cambridge: 
stereotyped and printed by h. 0. houghton. 



JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER 

£j)te Uolume is affectionately 

JhxscrtfcetJ. 



NOTE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION. 

THE author of " Rab and his Friends" scarcely needs an 
introduction to American readers. By this time many 
have learned to agree with a writer in the " North British Re- 
view " that "Rab" is, all things considered, the most perfect 
prose narrative since Lamb's " Rosamond Gray." 

A new world of doctors, clergymen, shepherds, and carriers 
is revealed in the writings of this cheerful Edinburgh scholar, 
who always brings genuine human feeling, strong sense, and 
fine genius to the composition of his papers. Dogs he loves 
with an enthusiasm to be found nowhere else in canine litera- 
ture. He knows intimately all a cur means when he winks his 
eye or wags his tail, so that the whole barking race, — terrier, 
mastiff, spaniel, and the rest, — finds in him an affectionate and 
interested friend. His genial motto seems to run thus — " I 
cannot understand that morality which excludes animals from 
human sympathy, or releases man from the debt and obligation 
he owes to them." 

With the author's consent we have rejected from his two 
series of " Horse Subsecivse" the articles on strictly professional 
subjects, and have collected into this volume the rest of his ad- 
mirable papers in that work. The title, "Spare Hours," is 
also adopted with the author's sanction. 

Dr. Brown is an eminent practising physician in Eidnburgh, 
with small leisure for literary composition, but no one has 
stronger claims to be ranked among the purest and best writ 
ers of our day, 

Boston, December 1861. 




CONTENTS. 

Rab and His Friends 21 

"With Brains, Sir" 41 

The Mystery of Black and Tan ... 65 

Her Last Half- Crown 77 

Our Dogs 83 

Queen Mary's Child-Garden . . . .107 
Presence of Mind and Happy Guessing . 115 

My Father's Memoir 125 

Mystifications 215 

" Oh, I'm Wat, Wat I " 229 

Arthur H. Hall am 241 

Education Through the Senses . . .297 

Vaughan's Poems 311 

Dr. Chalmers 353 

Dr. George Wilson 385 

St. Paul's Thorn in the Flesh . . . .397 
The Black Dwarf's Bones . . . . 419 
Notes on Art 439 



AUTHOR'S PREFACE, 




N that delightful and provoking book, " The 
Doctor, &c," Southey says : " 'Prefaces,' 
said Charles Blount, Gent., ' Prefaces,' ac- 
^ cording to this flippant, ill-opinioned, and 
unhappy man, ' ever were, and still are, but of two sorts, 
let the mode and fashions vary as they please, — let the 
long peruke succeed the godly cropt hair ; the cravat, 
the ruff ; presbytery, popery ; and popery, presbytery 
again, — yet still the author keeps to his old and wonted 
method of prefacing ; when at the beginning of his book 
he enters, either with a halter round his neck, submit- 
ting himself to his readers' mercy whether he shall be 
hanged or no, or else, in a huffing manner, he appears 
with the halter in his hand, and threatens to hang his 
reader, if he gives him not his good word. This, with 
the excitement of friends to his undertaking, and some 
few apologies for the want of time,' books, and the like, 
are the constant and usual shams of all scribblers, an- 
cient and modern.' This was not true then," says 
Southey, " nor is it now." I differ from Southey, in 
thinking there is some truth in both ways of wearing 
the halter. For though it be neither manly nor hon- 
est to affect a voluntary humility (which is after all, a 
sneaking vanity, and would soon show itself if taken at 



10 PREFACE. 

its word), any more than it is well-bred, or seemly to 
put on (for it generally is put on) the " huffing man- 
ner/' both such being truly " shams," — there is gen- 
eral truth in Mr. Blount's flippancies. 

Every man should know and lament (to himself) his 
own shortcomings — should mourn over and mend, as 
he best can, the " confusions of his wasted youth ; " he 
should feel how ill he has put out to usury the talent 
given him by the Great Taskmaster — how far he is 
from being " a good and faithful servant ; " and he should 
make this rather understood than expressed by his man- 
ner as a writer ; while at the same time, every man 
should deny himself the luxury of taking his hat off 
to the public, unless he has something to say, and has 
done his best to say it aright; and every man should 
pay not less attention to the dress in which his thoughts 
present themselves, than he would to that of his per- 
son on going into company. 

Bishop Butler, in his " Preface to his Sermons," in 
which there is perhaps more solid living sense than in 
the same number of words anywhere else after making 
the distinction between " obscurity " and " perplexity 
and confusion of thought," — the first being in the sub- 
ject, the others in its expression, says, — " confusion 
and perplexity are, in writing, indeed without excuse, 
because any one may, if he pleases, know whether he 
understands or sees through what he is about, and it 
is unpardonable in a man to lay his thoughts before 
others, when he is conscious that he himself does not 
know whereabouts he is, or how the matter before him 
stands. It is coming abroad in disorder, which he ought 
to be dissatisfied to find himself in at home" 

There should therefore be in his Preface, as in the 



PREFACE. 11 

writer himself, two elements. A writer should have 
some assurance that he has something to say, and this 
assurance should, in the true sense, not the Milesian, 

be modest. 

****** 

I have to apologize for bringing in " Rab and his 
Friends." I did so, remembering well the good I got 
then, as a man and as a doctor. It let me see down 
into the depths of our common nature, and feel the 
strong and gentle touch that we all need, and never for- 
get, which makes the world kin ; and it gave me an op- 
portunity of introducing, in a way which he cannot dis- 
like, for he knows it is simply true, my old master and 
friend, Professor Syme, whose indenture I am thankful 
I possess, and whose first wheels I delight in thinking 
my apprentice-fee purchased, thirty years ago. I re- 
member as if it were yesterday, his giving me the first 
drive across the west shoulder of Corstorphine Hill. On 
starting, he said, " John, we'll do one thing at a time, 
and there will be no talk." I sat silent and rejoicing, 
and can remember the very complexion and clouds of 
that day and that matchless view : Damyat and Benledi 
resting couchant at the gate of the Highlands, with the 
huge Grampians, immane pecus, crowding down into the 
plain. 

This short and simple story shows, that here, as every- 
where else, personally, professionally, and publicly, re- 
ality is his aim and his attainment. He is one of the 
men — they are all too few — who desire to be on the 
side of truth more than to have truth on their side; 
and whose personal and private worth are always bet- 
ter understood than expressed. It has been happily 
said of him, that he never wastes a word, or a drop of 



12 PREFACE. 

ink, or a drop of blood ; and his is the strongest, exact- 
est, truest, immediatest, safest intellect, dedicated by its 
possessor to the surgical cure of mankind, I have ever 
yet met with. He will, I firmly believe, leave an in- 
heritance of good done, and mischief destroyed, of truth 
in theory and in practice established, and of error in the 
same exposed and ended, such as no one since John 
Hunter has been gifted to bequeath to his fellow-men. 
As an instrument for discovering truth, I have never 
seen his perspicacity equalled ; his mental eye is achro- 
matic, and admits into the judging mind a pure white 
light, and records an undisturbed, uncolored image, un- 
diminished and unenlarged in its passage ; and he has 
the moral power, courage, and conscience, to use and 
devote such an inestimable instrument aright. I need 
hardly add, that the story of " Rab and his Friends " is 
in all essentials strictly matter of fact. 

There is an odd sort of point, if it can be called a 
point, on which I would fain say something — and that 
is an occasional outbreak of sudden, and it may be felt, 
untimely humorousness. I plead guilty to this, sensi- 
ble of the tendency in me of the merely ludicrous to 
intrude, and to insist on being attended to, and ex- 
pressed : it is perhaps too much the way with all of 
us now-a-days, to be forever joking. Mr, Punch, to 
whom we take off our hats, grateful for his innocent 
and honest fun, especially in his Leech, leads the way ; 
and our two great novelists, Thackeray and Dickens, 
the first especially, are, in the deepest and highest sense, 
essentially humorists, — the best, nay, indeed the almost 
only good thing in the latter, being his broad and wild 
fun ; Swiveller, and the Dodger, and Sam Weller, and 
Miggs, are more impressive far to my taste than the 



PREFACE. 13 

melodramatic, utterly unreal Dombey, or his strumous 
and hysterical son, or than all the later dreary trash of 
" Bleak House," &c. 

My excuse is, that these papers are really what they 
profess to be, done at bye-hours. Dulce est desipere, 
when in its fit place and time. Moreover, let me tell 
my young doctor friends, that a cheerful face, and step, 
and neckcloth, and button-hole, and an occasional hearty 
and kindly joke, a power of executing and setting ago- 
ing a good laugh, are stock in our trade not to be de- 
spised. The merry heart does good like a medicine. 
Your pompous man, and your selfish man, don't laugh 
much, or care for laughter ; it discomposes the fixed 
grandeur of the one, and has little room in the heart 
of the other, who is literally self-contained. My Edin- 
burgh readers will recall many excellent jokes of their 
doctors — " Lang Sandie Wood," Dr. Henry Davidson 
our Guy Patin and better, &c. 

I may give an instance, when a joke was more and 
better than itself. A comely young wife, the " cyn- 
osure " of her circle, was in bed, apparently dying from 
swelling and inflammation of the throat, an inaccessible 
abscess stopping the way ; she could swallow nothing ; 
everything had been tried. Her friends were standing 
round her bed in misery and helplessness. " Try her 
wi' a compliment" said her husband, in a not un comic 
despair. She had genuine humor, as well as he ; and 
as physiologists know, there is a sort of mental tickling 
which is beyond and above control, being under the 
reflex system, and instinctive as well as sighing. She 
laughed with her whole body and soul, and burst the 
abscess, and was well. 

Humor, if genuine (and if not, it is not humor), is 



14 PREFACE. 

the very flavor of the spirit, its rich and fragrant oz- 
mazome — having in its aroma something of everything 
in the man, his expressed juice ; wit is but the laugh- 
ing flower of the intellect or the turn of speech, and is 
often what we call a " gum-flower," and looks well when 
dry. Humor is, in a certain sense, involuntary in its 
origin in one man, and in its effect upon another ; it 
is systemic, and not local. 

Sydney Smith, in his delightful and valuable Sketches 
of Lectures on Moral Philosophy, to which I have re- 
ferred, makes a touching and impressive confession of 
the evil to the rest of a man's nature from the pre- 
dominant power and cultivation of the ludicrous. I be- 
lieve Charles Lamb could have told a like, and as true, 
but sadder story. He started on life with all the en- 
dowments of a great, ample, and serious nature, and 
he ended in being little else than the incomparable 
joker and humorist, and was in the true sense, " of 
large discourse." l 

1 Many good and fine things have been said of this wonderful and 
unique genius, but I know none better or finer than these lines by 
my friend John Hunter of Craigcrook. They- are too little known, 
and no one will be anything but pleased to read them, except their 
author. The third line might have been Elia's own: — 

" . . . . Humor, wild wit, 
Quips, cranks, puns, sneers, — with clear sweet thought profound; — 
And stinging jests, with honey for the wound; — 
The subtlest lines of all fine powers, split 
To their last films, then marvellously spun 
In magic web, whose million hues are one ! " 

I knew one man who was almost altogether and absolutely comic, 
and yet a man of sense, fidelity, courage, and worth, but over his 
entire nature the comic ruled supreme — the late Sir Adam Fergu- 
son, whose very face was a breach of solemnity ; I dare say, even in 
sleep he looked a wag. This was the way in which everything ap- 
peared to him first, and often last too, with a serious enough middle. 



PREFACE. 15 

It only remains now for me to thank my cousin and 
life-long friend, John Taylor Brown, the author of the 

I saw him not long before his death, when he was of great age and 
knew he was dying; there was no levity in his manner, or thought- 
lessness about his state; he was kind, and shrewd as ever; but how 
he flashed out with utter merriment when he got hold of a joke, or 
rather when it got hold of him, and shook him, not an inch of his 
body was free of its power — it possessed him, not he it. The first 
attack was on showing me a calotype of himself by the late Adamson 
(of Hill and Adamson; the Vandyke and Raeburn of photography), 
in the corner of which he had written, with a hand trembling with 
age and fun, " Adam's-sun fecit " — it came back upon him and tore 
him without mercy. 

Then, his blood being up, he told me a story of his uncle, the great 
Dr. Black the chemist; no one will grudge the reading of it in my 
imperfect record, though it is to the reality what reading music is to 
hearing it. 

Dr. Black, when Professor of Chemistry in Edinburgh University, 
had a gruff old man as his porter, a James Alston. James was one of 
the old school of chemistry, and held by phlogiston, but for no better 
reason than the endless trouble the new-fangled discoveries brought 
upon him in the way of apparatus. 

The Professor was lecturing on Hydrogen Gas, and had made ar- 
rangements for showing its lightness, what our preceptor, Dr. Charles 
Hope, called, in his lofty way, its "principle of absolute levity." He 
was greatly excited, the good old man of genius. James was stand- 
ing behind his chair, ready and sulky. His master told his young 
friends that the bladder he had filled with the gas must, on principle, 
ascend ; but that they would see practically if it did, and he cut the 
string. Up it rushed,' amid the shouts and upturned faces of the 
boys, and the quiet joy of their master; James regarding it with a 
glum curiosity. 

Young Adam Ferguson was there, and left at the end of the hour 
with the rest, but finding he had forgotten his stick, went back ; in 
the empty room, he found James perched upon a lofty and shaky 
ladder, trying, amid much perspiration, and blasphemy, and want of 
breath, to hit down his enemy, who rose at each stroke — the old bat- 
tling with the new. Sir Adam's reproduction of this scene, his voice 
and screams of rapture, I shall never forget. 

Let me give another pleasant story of Dr. Black and Sir Adam, 
which our Principal (Dr. Lee) delights to tell; it is merely its bones. 
The doctor sent him to the bank for £5 — four in notes, and one in 



16 PREFACE. 

tract on " St. Paul's Thorn in the Flesh." I am sure 
my readers will thank me not less heartily than I now 
do him. The theory that the thorn of the great apostle 
was an affection of the eyes is not new ; it will be 
found in " Hannah Mo re's Life," and in " Conybeare and 
Howson;" but his argument and his whole treatment, I 
have reason to believe, from my father and other com- 
petent judges, is thoroughly original ; it is an exquisite 
monograph, and to me most instructive and striking. 
Every one will ask why such a man has not written 
more — a question my fastidious friend will find is easier 
asked than answered. 

This Preface was written, and I had a proof ready 
for his pencil, when I was summoned to the death of 
him to whom I owe my life. He had been dying for 
months, but he and I hoped to have got and to have 
given into his hands a copy of these Iforce, the correc- 
tion of which had often whiled away his long hours of 
languor and pain. God thought otherwise. I shall 
miss his great knowledge, his loving and keen eye — 
his ne quid nimis — his sympathy — himself. Let me 
be thankful that it was given to me assidere valetudini, 
fovere dejicientem, $atiari vultu, complexu. 

Si quis piorum manibus locus ; si, ut sapientibus 
placet, non cum corpore extinguuntur magna animce ; 
placide quiescas I 

silver; then told him that he must be paid for his trouble with a shil- 
ling, and next proceeded to give him good advice about the manage- 
ment of money, particularly recommending a careful record of every 
penny spent, holding the shilling up before him all the time. Dur- 
ing this address, Sir Adam was turning over in his mind all the trash 
he would be able to purchase with the shilling, and his feeling may 
be imagined when the doctor finally returned it to his own pocket. 



PREFACE. 17 

Or, in more sacred and hopeful words, which, put 
there at my father's request, may be found at the close 
of the paper on young Hallam : " O man greatly be- 
loved, go thou thy way till the end ; for thou shalt rest, 
and stand in thy lot at the end of the days." 

It is not for a son to speak what he thinks of his 
father so soon after his death. I leave him now with 
a portrait of his spiritual lineaments, by Dr. Cairns, — 
which is to them what a painting by Velasquez and 
Da Vinci combined would have been to his bodily 
presence. 

" As he was of the Pauline type of mind, his Christianity ran into 
the same mould. A strong, intense, and vehement nature, with 
masculine intellect and unyielding will, he accepted the Bible in 
its literal simplicity as an absolute revelation, and then showed the 
strength of his character in subjugating his whole being to this 
decisive influence, and in projecting the same convictions into other 
minds. He was a believer in the sense of the old Puritans, and, 
amid the doubt and skepticism of the nineteenth century, held as 
firmly as any of them by the doctrines of atonement and grace. 
He had most of the idiosyncrasy of Baxter, though not without the 
contemplation of Howe. The doctrines of Calvinism, mitigated but 
not renounced, and received simply as dictates of Heaven, without 
any effort or hope to bridge over their inscrutable depths by philo- 
sophical theories, he translated into a fervent, humble, and resolutely 
active life. 

"There was a fountain of tenderness in his nature as well as a 
sweep of impetuous indignation; and the one drawn out, and the 
other controlled by his Christian faith, made him at once a philan- 
thropist and a reformer, and both in the highest departments of 
human interest. The union of these ardent elements, and of a 
highly devotional temperament, not untouched with melancholy, with 
the patience of the scholar, and the sobriety of the critic, formed the 
singularity and almost the anomaly of his personal character. These 
contrasts were tempered by the discipline of experience ; and his life, 
both as a man and a Christian, seemed to become more rich, genial, 
and harmonious as it approached its close." — Scotsman, October 20th. 

J. B. 

23, Eutland Street, October 30, 1858. 
2 



18 PREFACE. 



POST PREFACE. 

I have to thank the public and my own special craft 
cordially and much for their reception of these Idle 
Hours — Brown Studies, as a friendly wag calls them — 
and above all, for their taking to their hearts that great 
old dog and his dead friends, — for all which the one 
friend who survives thanks them. There is no harm 
and some good in letting our sympathy and affection 
go forth without stint on such objects, dead and homely 
though they be. 

When I think of that noble head, with its look and 
eye of boundless affection and pluck, simplicity and 
single-heartedness, I feel what it would be for us, who 
call ourselves the higher animals, to be in our ways as 
simple, affectionate, and true, as that old mastiff; and 
in the highest of all senses, I often think of what Robert 
Burns says somewhere, " Man is the god of the dog." 
It would be well for man if his worship were as im- 
mediate and instinctive — as absolute as the dog's. Did 
we serve our God with half the zeal Rab served his, we 
might trust to sleep as peacefully in our graves as he 
does in his. When James turned his angry eye and 
raised his quick voice and foot, his worshipper slunk 
away, humbled and afraid, angry with himself for mak- 
ing him angry ; anxious by any means to crouch back 
into his favor, and a kind look or word. Is that the 
way we take His displeasure, even when we can't think, 
as Rab couldn't, we were immediately to blame ? It is, 
as the old worthy says, something to trust our God in 
the dark, as the dog does his. 



PREFACE. 19 

A dear and wise and exquisite child, drew a plan for a 
headstone on the grave of a favorite terrier, and she had 
in it the words " who died " on such a day ; the older 
and more worldly-minded painter put in " which ; " 
and my friend and " Bossy's " said to me, with some 
displeasure, as w r e were examining the monuments, 
" Wasn't he a Who as much as they ? " and wasn't 
she righter than they? and 

"Quis desiderio sit aut pudor aut modus 
Tarn cari capitis " — 

as that of " Rab." 

With regard to the quotations — and the much Latin 
and some Greek, the world of men, and especially of 
women, is dead against me. I am sorry for it. As he 
said, who was reminded in an argument that the facts 
were against him, " So much the worse for them," and 
I may add for me. Latin and Greek are not dead — 
in one sense, they are happily immortal ; but the pres- 
ent age is doing its worst to kill them, and much of 
their own best good and pleasure. 

23, Rutland Street, 
October 13, 1859. 



BAB AND HIS FBIENDS. 



To MY TWO FRIENDS 
at Busby, Renfrewshire, 

In Remembrance of a Journey from Carstairs Junction 
to Toledo and back, 

The Story of " Rab and his Friends " is inscribed. 



EAB AND HIS FRIENDS. 




f^OUR-AND-THIRTY years ago, Bob Ains- 
lie and I were coming up Infirmary Street 
from the Edinburgh High School, our heads 
together, and our arms intertwisted, as only 
lovers and boys know how, or why. 

When we got to the top of the street, and turned 
north, we espied a crowd at the Tron Church. " A dog- 
fight ! " shouted Bob, and was off; and so was I, both of 
us all but praying that it might not be over before we 
got up ! And is not this boy-nature ? and human nature 
too ? and don't we all wish a house on fire not to be out 
before we see it ? Dogs like fighting ; old Isaac says 
they " delight " in it, and for the best of all reasons ; and 
boys are not cruel because they like to see the fight. 
They see three of the great cardinal virtues of dog or 
man — courage, endurance, and skill — in intense action. 
This is very different from a love of making dogs fight, 
and enjoying, and aggravating, and making gain by their 
pluck. A boy — be he ever so fond himself of fighting, 
if he be a good boy, hates and despises all this, but he 
would have run off with Bob and me fast enough : it is a 
natural, and a not wicked interest, that all boys and men 
have in witnessing intense energy in action. 

Does any curious and finely-ignorant woman wish to 
know how Bob's eye at a glance announced a dog-fight to 



24 RAB AND HIS FRIENDS. 

his brain ? He did not, lie could not see the do^s fight- 
ing ; it was a flash of an inference, a rapid induction. 
The crowd round a couple of dogs fighting, is a crowd 
masculine mainly, with an occasional active, compassion- 
ate woman, fluttering wildly round the outside, and using 
her tongue and her hands freely upon the men, as so 
many " brutes ; " it is a crowd annular, compact, and mo- 
bile ; a crowd centripetal, having its eyes and its heads 
all bent downwards and inwards, to one common focus. 

Well, Bob and I are up, and find it is not over : a 
small thoroughbred, white bull-terrier, is busy throttling 
a large shepherd's dog, unaccustomed to war, but not to 
be trifled with. They are hard at it ; the scientific little 
fellow doing his work in great style, his pastoral enemy 
fighting wildly, but with the sharpest of teeth and a great 
courage. Science and breeding, however, soon had their 
own ; the Game Chicken, as the premature Bob called 
him, working his way up, took his final grip of poor 
Yarrow's throat, — and he lay gasping and done for. 
His master, a brown, handsome, big young shepherd 
from Tweedsmuir, would have liked to have knocked 
down any man, would " drink up Esil, or eat a crocodile," 
for that part, if he had a chance : it was no use kicking 
the little dog ; that would only make him hold the closer. 
Many were the means shouted out in mouthfuls, of the 
best possible ways of ending it. " Water ! " but there 
was none near, and many cried for it who might have 
got it from the well at Blackfriars Wynd. " Bite the 
tail ! " and a large, vague, benevolent, middle-aged man, 
more desirous than wise, with some struggle got the 
bushy end of Yarrow's tail into his ample mouth, and bit 
it with all his might. This was more than enough for 
the much-enduring, much-perspiring shepherd, who, with 



RAB AND HIS FRIENDS. 25 

a gleam of joy over his broad visage, delivered a terrific 
facer upon our large, vague, benevolent, middle-aged 
friend, — who went down like a shot. 

Still the Chicken holds; death not far off. "Snuff! 
a pinch of snuff !" observed a calm, highly-dressed 
young buck, with an eye-glass in his eye. " Snuff, in- 
deed ! " growled the angry crowd, affronted and glaring. 
" Snuff! «a pinch of snuff!" again observes the buck, 
but with more urgency ; whereon were produced several 
open boxes, and from a mull which may have been at 
Culloden, he took a pinch, knelt down, and presented it 
to the nose of the Chicken. The laws of physiology 
and of snuff take their course ; the Chicken sneezes, 
and Yarrow is free ! 

The young pastoral giant stalks off with Yarrow in 
his arms, — comforting him. 

But the Bull Terrier's blood is up, and his soul un- 
satisfied ; he grips the first dog he meets, and discover- 
ing she is not a dog, in Homeric phrase, he makes a 
brief sort of amende, and is off. The boys, with Bob 
and me at their head, are after him : down Niddry 
Street he goes, bent on mischief; up the Cowgate like 
an arrow — Bob and I, and our small men, panting 
behind. 

There, under the single arch of the South Bridge, is 
a huge mastiff, sauntering down the middle of the cause- 
way, as if with his hands in his pockets : he is old, gray, 
brindled, as big as a little Highland bull, and has the 
Shaksperian dewlaps shaking as he goes. 

The Chicken makes straight at him, and fastens on 
his throat. To our astonishment, the great creature 
does nothing but stand still, hold himself up, and roar 
— yes, roar ; a long, serious, remonstrative roar. How 



26 RAB AND HIS FRIENDS. 

is this? Bob and I are up to them. He is muzzled! 
The bailies had proclaimed a general muzzling, and his 
master, studying strength and economy mainly, had 
encompassed his huge jaws in a home-made apparatus, 
constructed out of the leather of some ancient breechin. 
His mouth was open as far as it could ; his lips curled 
up in rage — a sort of terrible grin ; his teeth gleaming, 
ready, from out the darkness ; the strap across bis mouth 
tense as a bowstring ; his whole frame stiff with indig- 
nation and surprise ; his roar asking us all round, " Did 
you ever see the like of this ? " He looked a statue of 
anger and astonishment, done in Aberdeen granite. 

We soon had a crowd : the Chicken held on. " A 
knife ! " cried Bob ; and a cobbler gave him his knife : 
you know the kind of knife, worn away obliquely to a 
point, and always keen. I put its edge to the tense 
leather ; it ran before it ; and then ! — one sudden jerk 
of that enormous head, a sort of dirty mist about his 
mouth, no noise, — and the bright and fierce little fel- 
low is dropped, limp, and dead. A solemn pause : this 
was more than any of us had bargained for. I turned 
the little fellow over, and saw he was quite dead ; the 
mastiff had taken him by the small of the back like a 
rat, and broken it. 

He looked down at his victim appeased, ashamed, and 
amazed ; snuffed him all over, stared at him, and taking 
a sudden thought, turned round and trotted off. Bob 
took the dead dog up, and said, " John, we'll bury him 
after tea." " Yes," said I, and was off after the mastiff. 
He made up the Cowgate at a rapid swing ; he had for- 
gotten some engagement. He turned up the Candle- 
maker Row, and stopped at the Harrow Inn. 

There was a carrier's cart ready to start, and a keen, 



RAB AND HIS FRIENDS. 27 

thin, impatient, black-a-vised little man, his hand at his 
gray horse's head, looking about angrily for something. 
" Rab, ye thief ! " said he, aiming a kick at my great 
friend, who drew cringing up, and avoiding the heavy 
shoe with more agility than dignity, and watching his 
master's eye, slunk dismayed under the cart, — his ears 
down, and as much as he had of tail down too. 

What a man this must be — thought I — to whom 
my tremendous hero turns tail ! The carrier saw the 
muzzle hanging, cut and useless, from his neck, and I 
eagerly told him the story, which Bob and I always 
thought, and still think, Homer, or King David, or Sir 
Walter alone were worthy to rehearse. The severe lit- 
tle man was mitigated, and condescended to say, " Eab, 
my man, puir Rabbie," — whereupon the stump of a tail 
rose up, the ears were cocked, the eyes filled, and were 
comforted ; the two friends were reconciled. " Hupp ! " 
and a stroke of the whip were given to Jess ; and off 
went the three. 

Bob and I buried the Game Chicken that night (we 
had not much of a tea) in the back-green of bis house 
in Melville Street, No. 17, with considerable gravity and 
silence ; and being at the time in the Iliad, and, like all 
boys, Trojans, we called him Hector of course. 



Six years have passed, — a long time for a boy and a 
dog : Bob Ainslie is off to the wars ; I am a medical 
student, and clerk at Minto House Hospital. 

Rab I saw almost every week, on the Wednesday ; 



28 RAB AND HIS FRIENDS. 

and we had much pleasant intimacy. I found the way 
to his heart by frequent scratching of his huge head, 
and an occasional bone. When I did not notice him he 
would plant himself straight before me, and stand wag- 
ging that bud of a tail, and looking up, with his head 
a little to the one side. His master I occasionally saw ; 
he used to call me u Maister John," but was laconic as 
any Spartan. 

One fine October afternoon, I was leaving the hospital, 
when I saw the large gate open, and in walked Rab, 
with that great and easy saunter of his. He looked as 
if taking general possession of the place ; like the Duke 
of Wellington entering a subdued city, satiated with vic- 
tory and peace. After him came Jess, now white from 
age, with her cart ; and in it a woman, carefully wrap- 
ped up, — the carrier leading the horse anxiously, and 
looking back. When he saw me, James (for his name 
was James Noble) made a curt and grotesque " boo," and 
said, " Maister John, this is the mistress ; she's got a 
trouble in her breest — some kind o' an income we're 
thinking'." 

By this time I saw the woman's face ; she was sitting 
on a sack filled with straw, her husband's plaid round 
her, and his big-coat with its large white metal buttons, 
over her feet. 

I never saw a more unforgetable face — pale, seri- 
ous, lonely? delicate, sweet, without being at all what 
we call fine. She looked sixty, and had on a mutch, 
white as snow, with its black ribbon ; her silvery, smooth 
hair setting off her dark-gray eyes — eyes such as one 
sees only twice or thrice in a lifetime, full of suffering, 

1 It is not easy giving this look by one word ; it was expressive of 
her being so much of her life alone. 



RAB AND HIS FRIENDS. 29 

full also of the overcoming of it : her eyebrows black 
and delicate, and her mouth firm, patient, and contented, 
which few mouths ever are. 

As I have said, I never saw a more beautiful coun- 
tenance, or one more subdued to settled quiet. " Ailie," 
said James, " this is Maister John, the young doctor ; 
Rab's freend, ye ken. We often speak aboot you, doc- 
tor." She smiled, and made a movement, but said 
nothing ; and prepared to come down, putting her plaid 
aside and rising. Had Solomon, in all his glory, been 
handing down the Queen of Sheba at his palace gate, 
he could not have done it more daintily, more tenderly, 
more like a gentleman, than did James the Howgate 
carrier, when he lifted down Ailie his wife. The con- 
trast of his small, swarthy, weather-beaten, keen, worldly 
face to hers — pale, subdued, and beautiful — was some- 
thing wonderful. Eab looked on concerned and puz- 
zled, but ready for anything that might turn up, — 
were it to strangle the nurse, the porter, or even me. 
Ailie and he seemed great friends. 

" As I was sayin' she's got a kind o' trouble in her 
breest, doctor ; wull ye tak' a look at it ? " We walked 
into the consulting-room, all four ; Rab grim and comic, 
willing to be happy and confidential if cause could be 
shown, willing also to be the reverse, on the same terms. 
Ailie sat down, undid her open gown and her lawn hand- 
kerchief round her neck, and without a word, showed 
me her right breast. I looked at and examined it care- 
fully, — she and James watching me, and Rab eying 
all three. What could I say ? there it was, that had 
once been so soft, so shapely, so white, so gracious and 
bountiful, so " full of all blessed conditions," — hard as 
a stone, a centre of horrid pain, making that pale face, 



30 RAB AND HIS FRIENDS. 

with its gra} r , lucid, reasonable eyes, and its sweet re- 
solved mouth, express the full measure of suffering over- 
come. Why was that gentle, modest, sweet woman, 
clean and lovable, condemned by God to bear such a 
burden ? 

I got her away to bed. " May Rab and me bide ? " 
said James. " You may ; and Rab, if he will behave 
himself." " I'se warrant he's do that, doctor ; " and in 
slank the faithful beast. I wish you could have seen 
him. There are no such dogs now. He belonged to a 
lost tribe. As I have said, he was brindled and gray 
like Rubislaw granite ; his hair short, hard, and close, 
like a lion's ; his body thick set, like a little bull — a 
sort of compressed Hercules of a dog. He must have 
been ninety pounds' weight, at the least ; he had a large 
blunt head ; his muzzle black as night, his mouth blacker 
than any night, a tooth or two — being all he had — 
gleaming out of his jaws of darkness. His head was 
scarred with the records of old wounds, a sort of series 
of fields of battle all over it; one eye out, one ear cropped 
as close as was Archbishop Leighton's father's ; the re- 
maining eye had the power of two ; and above it, and in 
constant communication with it, was a tattered rag of an 
ear, which was forever unfurling itself, like an old flag ; 
and then that bud of a tail, about one inch long, if it 
could in any sense be said to be long, being as broad as 
long — the mobility, the instantaneousness of that bud 
were very funny and surprising, and its expressive twink- 
lings and winkings, the intercommunications between the 
eye, the ear, and it, were of the oddest and swiftest. 

Rab had the dignity and simplicity of great size ; and 
having fought his way all along the road to absolute su- 
premacy, he was as mighty in his own line as Julius 



RAB AND HIS FRIENDS. 31 

Cassar or the Duke of Wellington, and had the gravity 1 
of all great fighters. 

You must have often observed the likeness of certain 
men to certain animals, and of certain dogs to men. 
Now, I never looked at Rab without thinking of the 
great Baptist preacher, Andrew Fuller. 2 The same 
large, heavy, menacing, combative, sombre, honest coun- 
tenance, the same deep inevitable eye, the same look, 
— as of thunder asleep, but ready, — neither a dog nor 
a man to be trifled with. 

Next day, my master, the surgeon, examined Ailie. 
There was no doubt it must kill her, and soon. It could 
be removed — it might never return — it would give her 
speedy relief — she should have it done. She curtsied, 
looked at James, and said, " When ? " " To-morrow," 
said the kind surgeon — a man of few words. She and 
James and Rab and I retired. I noticed that he and 
she spoke little, but seemed to anticipate everything 
in each other. The following day, at noon, the students 
came in, hurrying up the great stair. At the first land- 

1 A Highland game-keeper, when asked why a certain terrier, of 
singular pluck, was so much more solemn than the other dogs, said, 
"Oh, Sir, life's full o' sairiousness to him — he just never can get 
enuff o' fechtin'." 

2 Fuller was, in early life, when a farmer lad at Soham, famous as 
a boxer; not quarrelsome, but not without "the stern delight" a 
man of strength and courage feels in their exercise. Dr. Charles 
Stewart, of Dunearn, whose rare gifts and graces as a physician, a 
divine, a scholar, and a gentleman, live only in the memory of those 
few who knew and survive him, liked to tell how Mr. Fuller used to 
say, that when he was in the pulpit, and saw a buirdly man come 
along the passage, he would instinctively draw himself up, measure 
his imaginary antagonist, and forecast how he would deal with him, 
his hands meanwhile condensing into fists, and tending to "square." 
He must have been a hard hitter if he boxed as he preached — what 
" The Fancy " would call " an ugly customer." 



32 RAB AND HIS FRIENDS. 

ing-place, on a small well-known blackboard, was a bit 
of paper fastened by wafers, and many remains of old 
wafers beside it. On the paper were the words, — " An 
operation to-day. J. B. Clerk" 

Up ran the youths, eager to secure good places: in 
they crowded, full of interest and talk. " What's the 
case ? " " Which side is it ? " 

Don't think them heartless ; they are neither better 
nor worse than you or I ; they get over their profes- 
sional horrors, and into their proper work — and in 
them pity — as an emotion, ending in itself or at best 
in tears and a long-drawn breath, lessens, while pity as 
a motive, is quickened, and gains power and purpose. 
It is well for poor human nature that it is so. 

The operating theatre is crowded ; much talk and fun, 
and all the cordiality and stir of youth. The surgeon 
with his staff of assistants is there. In comes Ailie : 
one look at her quiets and abates the eager students. 
That beautiful old woman is too much for them ; they 
sit down, and are dumb, and gaze at her. These rough 
boys feel the power of her presence. She walks in 
quickly, but without haste ; dressed in her mutch, her 
neckerchief, her white dimity short-gown, her black bom- 
bazine petticoat, showing her white worsted stockings 
and her carpet-shoes. Behind her was James with Eab. 
James sat down in the distance, and took that huge and 
noble head between his knees. Rab looked perplexed 
and dangerous ; forever cocking his ear and dropping it 
as fast. 

Ailie stepped up on a seat, and laid herself on the 
table, as her friend the surgeon told her ; arranged her- 
self, gave a rapid look at James, shut her eyes, rested 
herself on me, and took my hand. The operation was 



RAB AND HIS FRIENDS. 33 

at once begun ; it was necessarily slow ; and chloroform 
— one of God's best gifts to his suffering children — 
was then unknown. The surgeon did his work. The 
pale face showed its pain, but was still and silent. Rab's 
soul was working within him ; he saw that something 
strange was going on, — blood flowing from his mis- 
tress, and she suffering ; his ragged ear was up, and 
importunate ; he growled and gave now and then a sharp 
impatient yelp ; he would have liked to have done some- 
thing to that man. But James had him firm, and gave 
him a glower from time to time, and an intimation of a 
possible kick ; — all the better for James, it kept his 
eye and his mind off Ailie. 

It is over : she is dressed, steps gently and decently 
down from the table, looks for James ; then, turning to 
the surgeon and the students, she curtsies, — and in a 
low, clear voice, begs their pardon if she has behaved 
ill. The students — all of us — wept like children ; the 
surgeon happed her up carefully, — and, resting on James 
and me, Ailie went to her room, Rab following. We 
put her to bed. James took off his heavy shoes, cram- 
med with tackets, heel-capt and toe-capt, and put them 
carefully under the table, saying, " Maister John, I'm 
for nane o' yer strynge nurse bodies for Ailie. I'll be 
her nurse, and I'll gang aboot on my stockin' soles as 
canny as pussy." And so he did; and handy and 
clever, and swift and tender as any woman, was that 
horny-handed, snell, peremptory little man. Everything 
she got he gave her : he seldom slept ; and often I 
saw his small shrewd eyes out of the darkness, fixed 
on her. As before, they spoke little. 

Rab behaved well, never moving, showing us how 
meek and gentle he could be, and occasionally, in his 
3 



34 RAB AND HIS FRIENDS. 

sleep, letting us know that he was demolishing some 
adversary. He took a walk with me every day, gen- 
erally to the Candlemaker Row ; but he was sombre 
and mild; declined doing battle, though some fit cases 
offered, and indeed submitted to sundry indignities ; 
and was always very ready to turn, and came faster 
back, and trotted up the stair with much lightness, and 
went straight to that door. 

Jess, the mare, had been sent, with her weather- 
worn cart, to Howgate, and had doubtless her own 
dim and placid meditations and confusions, on the ab- 
sence of her master and Rab, and her unnatural free- 
dom from the road and her cart. 

For some days Ailie did well. The wound healed 
"by the first intention;" for as James said, "Oor 
Ailie's skin's ower clean to beil." The students came 
in quiet and anxious, and surrounded her bed. She 
said she liked to see their young, honest faces. The 
surgeon dressed her, and spoke to her in his own short 
kind way, pitying her through his eyes, Rab and James 
outside the circle, — Rab being now reconciled, and 
even cordial, and having made up his mind that as 
yet nobody required worrying, but, as you may suppose, 
semper paratus. 

So far well : but, four days after the operation, my 
patient had a sudden and long shivering, a " groosin'," 
as she called it. I saw her soon after ; her eyes were 
too bright, her cheek colored ; she was restless, and 
ashamed of being so ; the balance was lost ; mischief 
had begun. On looking at the wound, a blush of red 
told the secret : her pulse was rapid, her breathing 
anxious and quick, she wasn't herself, as she said, and 
was vexed at her restlessness. We tried what we could. 



RAB AND HIS FRIENDS. 35 

James did everything, was everywhere ; never in the 
way, never out of it; Eab subsided under the table 
into a dark place, and was motionless, all but his eye, 
which followed every one. Ailie got worse ; began to 
wander in her mind, gently; was more demonstrative 
in her ways to James, rapid in her questions, and 
sharp at times. He was vexed, and said, " She was 
never that way afore ; no, never." For a time she 
knew her head was wrong, and was always asking our 
pardon — the dear, gentle old woman : then delirium 
set in strong, without pause. Her brain gave way, 
and then came that terrible spectacle, — 

" The intellectual power, through words and things, 
Went sounding on its dim and perilous way; " 

she sang bits of old songs and Psalms, stopping sud- 
denly, mingling the Psalms of David and the diviner 
words of his Son and Lord, with homely odds and ends 
and scraps of ballads. 

Nothing more touching, or in a sense more strangely 
beautiful, did I ever witness. Her tremulous, rapid, 
affectionate, eager, Scotch voice, — the swift, aimless, 
bewildered mind, the baffled utterance, the bright and 
perilous eye; some wild words, some household cares, 
something for James, the names of the dead, Rab called 
rapidly and in a " fremyt " voice, and he starting up, 
surprised, and slinking off as if he were to blame some- 
how, or had been dreaming he heard ; many eager 
questions and beseechings which James and I could 
make nothing of, and on which she seemed to set her 
all, and then sink back ununderstood. It was very 
sad, but better than many things that are not called sad. 
James hovered about, put out and miserable, but active 



36 RAB AND HIS FRIENDS. 

and exact as ever ; read to her when there was a lull, 
short bits from the Psalms, prose and metre, chanting 
the latter in his own rude and serious way, showing 
great knowledge of the lit words, bearing up like a 
man, and doating over her as his " ain Ailie." " Ailie, 
ma woman ! " " Ma ain bonnie wee daw tie ! " 

The end was drawing on : the golden bowl was break- 
ing ; the silver cord was fast being loosed — that animula 
blandula, vagida, hospes, comesque, was about to flee. 
The body and the soul — companions for sixty years — 
were being sundered, and taking leave. She was walk- 
ing alone, through the valley of that shadow, into which 
one day we must all enter, — and yet she was not 
alone, for we know whose rod and staff were comfort- 
ing her. 

One night she had fallen quiet, and as we hoped, 
asleep; her eyes were shut. We put down the gas, 
and sat watching her. Suddenly she sat up in bed, and 
taking a bed-gown which was lying on it rolled up, she 
held it eagerly to her breast, — to the right side. We 
could see her eyes bright with a surprising tenderness 
and joy, bending over this bundle of clothes. She held 
it as a woman holds her sucking child ; opening out her 
night-gown impatiently, and holding it close, and brood- 
ing over it, and murmuring foolish little words, as over 
one whom his mother comforteth, and who sucks and 
is satisfied. It was pitiful and strange to see her 
wasted dying look, keen and yet vague — her immense 
love. 

" Preserve me ! " groaned James, giving w r ay. And 
then she rocked back and forward, as if to make it 
sleep, hushing it, and wasting on it her infinite fond- 
ness. " Wae's me, doctor ; I declare she's thinkin' it's 



RAB AND HIS FRIENDS. . 37 

that bairn." " What bairn ? " " The only bairn we 
ever had ; our wee Mysie, and she's in the Kingdom, 
forty years and mair." It was plainly true : the pain 
in the breast, telling its urgent story to a bewildered, 
ruined brain, was misread and mistaken ; it suggested 
to her the uneasiness of a breast full of milk, and then 
the child ; and so again once more they were together, 
and she had her ain wee Mysie in her bosom. 

This was the close. She sank rapidly : the delirium 
left her ; but, as she whispered, she was " clean silly ; " 
it was the lightening before the final darkness. After 
having for some time lain still — her eyes shut, she 
said " James ! " He came close to her, and lifting up 
her calm, clear, beautiful eyes, she gave him a long look, 
turned to me kindly but shortly, looked for Rab but 
could not see him, then turned to her husband again, 
as if she would never leave off looking, shut her eyes, 
and composed herself. She lay for some time breath- 
ing quick, and passed away so gently, that when we 
thought she was gone, James, in his old-fashioned way, 
held the mirror to her face. After a long pause, one 
small spot of dimness was breathed out ; it vanished 
away, and never returned, leaving the blank clear dark- 
ness of the mirror without a stain. " What is our life ? 
it is even a vapor, which appeareth for a little time, 
and then vanisheth away." 

Rab all this time had been full awake and motionless ; 
he came forward beside us : Ailie's hand, which James 
had held, was hanging down ; it was soaked with his 
tears ; Rab licked it all over carefully, looked at her, and 
returned to his place under the table. 

James and I sat, I don't know how long, but for some 
time, — saying nothing : he started up abruptly, and with 



38 RAB AND HIS FRIEXDS. 

some noise went to the table, and putting his right fore 
and middle fingers each into a shoe, pulled them out, and 
put them on, breaking one of the leather latchets, and 
muttering in anger, " I never did the like o' that afore ! " 

I believe he never did ; nor after either. " Rab ! " he 
said roughly, and pointing with his thumb to the bottom 
of the bed. Rab leapt up, and settled himself; his head 
and eye to the dead face. " Maister John, ye'll wait for 
me," said the carrier ; and disappeared in the darkness, 
thundering down-stairs in his heavy shoes. I ran to a 
front window ; there he was, already round the house, 
and out at the gate, fleeing like a shadow. 

I was afraid about him, and yet not afraid ; so I sat 
down beside Rab, and being wearied, fell asleep. I 
awoke from a sudden noise outside. It was November, 
and there had been a heavy fall of snow. Rab was in 
statu quo ; he heard the noise too, and plainly knew 
it, but never moved. I looked out ; and there, at the 
gate, in the dim morning — for the sun was not up — 
was Jess and the cart, — a cloud of steam rising from 
the old mare. I did not see James ; he was already at 
the door, and came up the stairs, and met me. It was 
less than three hours since he left, and he must have post- 
ed out — who knows how ? — to Howgate, full nine miles 
off; yoked Jess, and driven her astonished into town. 
He had an armful of blankets, and was streaming with 
perspiration. He nodded to me, spread out on the floor 
two pairs of clean old blankets having at their corners, 
" A. G., 1794," in large letters in red worsted. These 
were the initials of Alison Grasme, and James may have 
looked in at her from without — himself unseen but not 
unthought of — when he was " wat, wat, and weary," 
and after having walked many a mile over the hills, may 



RAB AND HIS FRIENDS. 39 

have seen her sitting, while " a' the lave were sleepin' ; " 
and by the firelight working her name on the blankets, 
for her ain James's bed. 

He motioned Rab down, and taking his wife in his 
arms, laid her in the blankets, and happed her carefully 
and firmly up, leaving the face uncovered ; and then lift- 
ing her, he nodded again sharply to me, and with a re- 
solved but utterly miserable face, strode along the pas- 
sage, and down-stairs, followed by Rab. I followed with 
a light ; but he didn't need it. I went out, holding stu- 
pidly the candle in my hand in the calm frosty air ; we 
were soon at the gate. I could have helped him, but I 
saw he was not to be meddled with, and he was strong, 
and did not need it. He laid her down as tenderly, as 
safely, as he had lifted her out ten days before — as ten- 
derly as when he had her first in his arms when she was 
only " A. G.," — sorted her, leaving that beautiful sealed 
face open to the heavens ; and then taking Jess by the 
head, he moved away. He did not notice me, neither 
did Rab, who presided behind the cart. 

I stood till they passed through the long shadow of 
the College, and turned up Nicolson Street. I heard 
the solitary cart sound through the streets, and die away 
and come again ; and I returned, thinking of that com- 
pany going up Libberton Brae, then along Roslin Muir, 
the morning light touching the Pentlands and making 
them like on-looking ghosts ; then down the hill through 
Auchindinny woods, past " haunted Woodhouselee ; " and 
as daybreak came sweeping up the bleak Lammermuirs, 
and fell on his own door, the company would stop, and 
James would take the key, and lift Ailie up again, laying 
her on her own bed, and, having put Jess up, would re- 
turn with Rab and shut the door. 



40 RAB AND HIS FRIENDS. 

James buried his wife, with his neighbors mourning, 
Rab inspecting the solemnity from a distance. It was 
snow, and that black ragged hole would look strange 
in the midst of the swelling spotless cushion of white. 
James looked after everything ; then rather suddenly 
fell ill, and took to bed ; was insensible when the doctor 
came, and soon died. A sort of low fever was prevailing 
in the village, and his want of sleep, his exhaustion, and 
his misery, made him apt to take it. The grave was not 
difficult to reopen. A fresh fall of snow had again made 
all things white and smooth ; Rab once more looked on, 
and slunk home to the stable. 

And what of Rab ? I asked for him next week at the 
new carrier who got the goodwill of James's business, and 
was now master of Jess and her cart. " How's Rab ? " 
He put me off, and said rather rudely, " What's your 
business wi' the dowg ? " I was not to be so put off. 
"Where's Rab?" He, getting confused and red, and 
intermeddling with his hair, said, " 'Deed, sir, Rab's deid." 
"Dead! what did he die of?" " Weel, sir," said he, 
getting redder, " he didna exactly dee ; he was killed. 
I had to brain him wi' a rack -pin ; there was nae doin' 
wi' him. He lay in the treviss wi' the mear, and wadna 
come oot. I tempit him wi' kail and meat, but he wad 
tak naething, and keepit me frae feedin' the beast, and 
he was aye gur gurrin', and grup gruppin' me by the 
legs. I was laith to make awa wi' the auld dowg, his 
like wasna atween this and Thornhill, — but, 'deed, sir, 
I could do naething else." I believed him. Fit end for 
Rab, quick and complete. His teeth and his friends 
gone, why should he keep the peace, and be civil ? 



" With BRAINS, Sir." 



"Multi multa sciunt, pauci multum." 

" It is one thing to wish to have truth on our side, and another thing 
to wish to be on the side of truth." — Whately. 

"'ATaTiaLircopog role iroTCkolg rj tyr-ncic ttjq aAntyeiag, nal enl to. 
erotfia [luXkov rpe~ovTai." — Thuctdides. 

" The most perfect philosophy of the natural kind, only staves off our 
ignorance a little longer ; as, perhaps, the most perfect philosophy of 
the moral or metaphysical hind, serves only to discover larger portions of 
it: 1 — David Hume. 




"WITH BRAINS, SIR." 




RAY, Mr. Opie, may I ask what you mix 
your colors with ? " said a brisk dilettante 
student to the great painter. " With Brains, 
sir," was the gruff reply — and the right 
one. It did not give much of what we call information ; 
it did not expound the principles and rules of the art ; but, 
if the inquirer had the commodity referred to, it would 
awaken him ; it would set him a-going, a-thinking, and 
a-painting to good purpose. If he had not the where- 
withal, as was likely enough, the less he had to do with 
colors and their mixture the better. Many other artists, 
when asked such a question, would have either set about 
detailing the mechanical composition of such and such 
colors, in such and such proportions, rubbed up so and 
so ; or perhaps they would (and so much the better, but 
not the best) have shown him how they laid them on ; 
but even this would leave him at the critical point. Opie 
preferred going to the quick and the heart of the matter : 
" With Brains, sir." 

Sir Joshua Reynolds was taken by a friend to see a 
picture. He was anxious to admire it, and he looked it 
over with a keen and careful but favorable eye. u Capi- 
tal composition ; correct drawing ; the color, tone, chi- 
aroscuro excellent ; but — but — it wants, hang it, it 



44 WITH BRAINS, SIR. 

wants — That ! " snapping his fingers ; and, wanting 
" that/' though it had everything else, it was worth noth- 
ing. 

Again, Etty was appointed teacher of the students of 
the Royal Academy, having been preceded by a clever, 
talkative, scientific expounder of aesthetics, who delighted 
to tell the young men how everything was done, how to 
copy this, and how T to express that. A student came up 
to the new master, " How should I do this, sir?" "Sup- 
pose you try." Another, " What does this mean, Mr. 
Etty ? " " Suppose you look." " But I have looked." 
" Suppose you look again." And they did try, and they 
did look, and looked again ; and they saw and achieved 
what they never could have done, had the how or the 
what (supposing this possible, which it is not in its full 
and highest meaning) been told them, or done for them ; 
in the one case, sight and action were immediate, exact, 
intense, and secure ; in the other mediate, feeble, and lost 
as soon as gained. But what are "Brains"? what did 
Opie mean ? and what is Sir Joshua's " That " ? What 
is included in it ? and what is the use, or the need of 
trying and trying, of missing often before you hit, when 
you can be told at once and be done with it ; or of look- 
ing when you may be shown ? Everything in medicine 
and in painting — practical arts — as means to ends, let 
their scientific enlargement be ever so rapid and im- 
mense, depends upon the right answers to these ques- 
tions. 

First of all, " brains," in the painter, are not diligence, 
knowledge, skill, sensibility, a strong will, or a high aim, 
— he may have all these, and never paint anything so 
truly good and effective as the rugged woodcut we must 
all remember, of Apollyon bestriding the whole breadth 



WITH BRAINS, SIR. 45 

of the way, and Christian girding at him like a man, in 
the old sixpenny Pilgrim's Progress ; and a young medi- 
cal student may have zeal, knowledge, ingenuity, atten- 
tion, a good eye and a steady hand — he may be an 
accomplished anatomist, stethoscopist, histologist, and an- 
alyst ; and yet, with all this, and all the lectures, and all 
the books, and all the sayings, and all the preparations, 
drawings, tables, and other helps of his teachers, crowded 
into his memory or his note-books, he may be beaten in 
treating a whitlow or a colic, by the nurse in the wards 
where he was clerk, or by the old country doctor who 
brought him into the world, and w T ho listens with such 
humble wonder to his young friend's account, on his com- 
ing home after each session, of all he had seen and done, 
— of all the last astonishing discoveries and operations 
of the day. What the painter wants, in addition to, and 
as the complement of, the other elements, is genius and 
sense ; what the doctor needs to crown and give worth 
and safety to his accomplishments, is sense and genius : 
in the first case, more of this, than of that ; in the sec- 
ond, more of that, than of this. These are the " Brains " 
and the " That." 

And what is genius ? and what is sense ? Genius is a 
peculiar native aptitude, or tendency, to any one calling 
or pursuit over all others. A man may have a genius for 
governing, for killing, or for curing the greatest number 
of men, and in the best possible manner : a man may 
have a genius for the fiddle, or his mission may be for 
the tight-rope, or the Jew's harp ; or it may be a natural 
turn for seeking, and finding, and teaching truth, and for 
doing the greatest possible good to mankind ; or it may 
be a turn equally natural for seeking, and finding, and 
teaching a lie, and doing the maximum of mischief. It 



46 WITH BRAINS, SIR. 

was as natural, as inevitable, for Wilkie to develop him- 
self into a painter, and such a painter as we know him 
to have been, as it is for an acorn when planted to grow 
up into an oak, a specific quercus rohur. But genius, and 
nothing else, is not enough, even for a painter ; he must 
likewise have sense ; and what is sense ? Sense drives, 
or ought to drive, the coach ; sense regulates, combines, 
restrains, commands, all the rest — even the genius ; and 
sense implies exactness and soundness, power and promp- 
titude of mind. 

Then for the young doctor, he must have as his main, 
his master faculty, sense — Brains — i/o£>s, justness of 
mind, because his subject-matter is one in which princi- 
ple works, rather than impulse, as in painting ; the un- 
derstanding has first to do with it, however much it is 
worthy of the full exercise of the feelings, and the affec- 
tions. But all will not do, if genius is not there, — a 
real turn for the profession. It may not be a liking for it 
— some of the best of its practitioners never really liked 
it, at least liked other things better ; but there must be a 
fitness of faculty of body and mind for its full, constant, 
exact pursuit. This sense and this genius, such a special 
therapeutic gift, had Hippocrates, Sydenham, Pott, Pinel, 
John Hunter, Delpech, Dupuytren, Kellie, Cheyne, Bail- 
lie, and Abercrombie. We might, to pursue the subject, 
pick out painters who had much genius and little or no 
sense, and vice versa ; and physicians and surgeons, who 
had sense without genius, and genius without sense, and 
some perhaps who had neither, and yet were noticeable, 
and, in their own sideways, useful men. 

But our great object will be gained if we have given 
our young readers (and these remarks are addressed ex- 
clusively to students) any idea of what we mean, if we 



WITH BRAINS, SIR. 47 

have made them think, and look inwards. The noble 
and sacred science you have entered on is large, difficult, 
and deep, beyond most others ; it is every day becoming 
larger, deeper, and in many senses more difficult, more 
complicated and involved. It requires more than the 
average intellect, energy, attention, patience, and cour- 
age, and that singular but imperial quality, at once a 
gift and an acquirement, presence of mind — ayyivoia* or 
nearness of the vovs, as the subtle Greeks called it — than 
almost any other department of human thought and ac- 
tion, except perhaps that of ruling men. Therefore it is, 
that we hold it to be of paramount importance that the 
parents, teachers, and friends of youths intended for med- 
icine, and above all, that those who examine them on 
their entering on their studies, should at least (we might 
safely go much farther) satisfy themselves as far as they 
can, that they are not below par in intelligence ; they 
may be deficient and unapt, qua medici, and yet, if 
taken in time, may make excellent men in other use- 
ful and honorable callings. 

But suppose we have got the requisite amount and 
specific kind of capacity, how are w r e to fill it with its 
means ; how are we to make it effectual for its end ? 
On this point we say nothing, except that the fear now- 
a-days, is rather that the mind gets too much of too 
many things, than too little or too few. But this means 
of turning knowledge to action, making it what Bacon 
meant when he said it was power, invigorating the think- 
ing substance — giving tone, and you may call it muscle 
and nerve, blood and bone, to the mind — a firm gripe, 
and a keen and sure eye ; that we think, is far too little 
considered or cared for at present, as if the mere act 
of filling in everything forever into a poor lad's brain, 



48 WITH BRAINS, SIR. 

would give him the ability to make anything of it, and 
above all, the power to appropriate the small portions 
of true nutriment, and reject the dregs. 

One comfort we have, that in the main, and in the 
last resort, there is really very little that can be done 
for any man by another. Begin with the sense and the 
genius — the keen appetite and the good digestion — 
and, amid all obstacles and hardships, the work goes on 
merrily and well ; without these, we all know what a 
laborious affair, and a dismal, it is to make an incapable 
youth apply. Did any of you ever set yourselves to 
keep up artificial respiration, or to trudge about for a 
whole night with a narcotized victim of opium, or trans- 
fuse blood (your own perhaps) into a poor, fainting ex- 
animate wretch ? If so, you will have some idea of the 
heartless attempt, and its generally vain and miserable 
result, to make a dull student apprehend — a debauched, 
interested, knowing, or active in anything beyond the base 
of his brain — a weak, etiolated intellect hearty, and worth 
anything ; and yet how many such are dragged through 
their dreary curricula, and by some miraculous process 
of cramming, and equally miraculous power of turning 
their insides out, get through their examinations : and 
then — what then ? providentially, in most cases, they 
find their level ; the broad daylight of the world — its 
shrewd and keen eye, its strong instinct of what can, 
and what cannot serve its purpose — puts all, except 
the poor object himself, to rights ; happy is it for him 
if he turns to some new and more congenial pursuit 
in time. 

But it may be asked, how are the brains to be 
strengthened, the sense quickened, the genius awakened, 
the affections raised — the whole man turned to the best 



WITH BRAINS, SIR. 49 

account for the cure of his fellow-men ? How are you, 
when physics and physiology are increasing so mar- 
vellously, and when the burden of knowledge, the quan- 
tity of transferable information, of registered facts, of 
current names — and such names ! — is so infinite : 
how are you to enable a student to take all in, bear 
up under all, and use it as not abusing it, or being 
abused by it ? You must invigorate the containing and 
sustaining mind, you must strengthen him from within, 
as well as fill him from without ; you must discipline, 
nourish, edify, relieve, and refresh his entire nature ; 
and how? We have no time to go at large into this, 
but we will indicate what we mean : — encourage lan- 
guages, especially French and German, at the early part 
of their studies ; encourage not merely the book knowl- 
edge, but the personal pursuit of natural history, of 
field botany, of geology, of zoology ; give the young, 
fresh, unforgetting eye, exercise and free scope upon 
the infinite diversity and combination of natural colors, 
forms, substances, surfaces, weights, and sizes — every- 
thing, in a word, that will educate their eye or ear, their 
touch, taste, and smell, their sense of muscular resist- 
ance ; encourage them by prizes, to make skeletons, 
preparations, and collections of any natural objects ; 
and, above all, try and get hold of their affections, and 
make them put their hearts into their work. Let them, 
if possible, have the advantage of a regulated tutorial, 
as well as the ordinary professorial system. Let there 
be no excess in the number of classes and frequency 
of lectures. Let them be drilled in composition ; by 
this w r e mean the writing and spelling of correct, plain 
English (a matter not of every-day occurrence, and not 
on the increase), — let them be directed to the best 
4 



50 WITH BRAINS, SIR. 

books of the old masters in medicine, and examined in 
them, — let them be encouraged in the use of a whole- 
some and manly literature. We do not mean popular 
or even modern literature — such as Emerson, Bnhver, 
or Alison, or the trash of inferior periodicals or novels 
— fashion, vanity, and the spirit of the age, will attract 
them readily enough to all these ; we refer to the treas- 
ures of our elder and better authors. If our young 
medical student would take our advice, and for an hour 
or two twice a week take up a volume of Shakspeare, 
Cervantes, Milton, Dryden, Pope, Cowper, Montaigne, 
Addison, Defoe, Goldsmith, Fielding, Scott, Charles 
Lamb, Macaulay, Jeffrey, Sydney Smith, Helps, Thack- 
eray, &c, not to mention authors on deeper and more 
sacred subjects — they would have happier and healthier 
minds, and make none the worse doctors. If they, by 
good fortune — for the tide has set in strong against the 
liter ce humaniores — have come off with some Greek or 
Latin, we would supplicate for an ode of Horace, a 
couple of pages of Cicero or of Pliny once a month, 
and a page of Xenophon. French and German should 
be mastered either before or during the first years of 
study. They will never afterwards be acquired so easily 
or so thoroughly, and the want of them may be bitterly 
felt w T hen too late. 

But one main help, we are persuaded, is to be found 
in studying, and by this we do not mean the mere read- 
ing, but the digging into and through, the energizing 
upon, and mastering such books as we have mentioned 
at the close of this paper. These are not, of course, 
the only works we would recommend to those who wish 
to understand thoroughly, and to make up their minds, 
on these great subjects as wholes ; but we all know too 



WITH BRAINS, SIR. 51 



well that our Art is long, broad, and deep, — and Time, 
opportunity, and our little hour, brief and uncertain, 
therefore, we would recommend those books as a sort 
of game of the mind, a mental exercise — like cricket, 
a gymnastic, a clearing of the eyes of their mind as with 
euphrasy, a strengthening their power over particulars, 
a getting fresh, strong views of worn out, old things, and, 
above all, a learning the right use of their reason, and 
by knowing their own ignorance and weakness, finding 
true knowledge and strength. Taking up a book like 
Arnauld, and reading a chapter of his lively, manly 
sense, is like throwing your manuals, and scalpels, and 
microscopes, and natural (most unnatural) orders out 
of your hand and head, and taking a game with the 
Grange Club, or a run to the top of Arthur Seat. Exer- 
tion quickens your pulse, expands your lungs, makes 
your blood warmer and redder, fills your mouth with 
the pure waters of relish, strengthens and supples your 
legs ; and though on your way to the top you may 
encounter rocks, and baffling debris, and gusts of fierce 
winds rushing out upon you from behind corners, just 
as you will find in Arnauld, and all truly serious and 
honest books of the kind, difficulties and puzzles, winds 
of doctrine, and deceitful mists ; still you are rewarded 
at the top by the wide view. You see, as from a tower, 
the end of all. You look into the perfections and re- 
lations of things. You see the clouds, the bright lights 
and the everlasting hills on the far horizon. You come 
down the hill a happier, a better, and a hungrier man, 
and of a better mind. But, as we said, you must eat 
the book, you must crush it, and cut it with your teeth 
and swallow it ; just as you must walk up, and not be 
carried up the hill, much less imagine you are there, 



52 WITH BRAINS, SIR. 

or look upon a picture of what you would see were you 
up, however accurately or artistically done ; no — you 
yourself must do both. 

Philosophy — the love and the possession of wisdom 

— is divided into two things, science or knowledge ; and 
a habit, or power of mind. He who has got the first is 
not truly wise unless his mind has reduced and assimi- 
lated it, as Dr. Prout would have said, unless he appro- 
priates and can use it for his need. 

The prime qualifications of a physician may be sum- 
med up in the words Capax, Perspicax, Sagax, Efficax. 
Capax — there must be room to receive, and arrange, 
and keep knowledge ; Perspicax — senses and percep- 
tions, keen, accurate, and immediate, to bring in mate- 
rials from all sensible things ; Sagax — a central power 
of knowing what is what, and what it is worth, of choos- 
ing and rejecting, of judging ; and finally, Efficax — the 
will and the way — the power to turn all the other three 

— capacity, perspicacity, sagacity, to account, in the per- 
formance of the thing in hand, and thus rendering back 
to the outer world, in a new and useful form, what you 
had received from it. These are the intellectual quali- 
ties which make up the physician, without any one of 
which he would be ?nancus, and would not deserve the 
name of a complete artsman, any more than proteine 
would be itself if any one of its four elements were 
amissing. 

We have left ourselves no room to speak of the books 
we have named at the end of this paper. We recom- 
mend them all to our young readers. Arnauld's excel- 
lent and entertaining Art of Thinking — the once famous 
Port-Royal Logic — is, if only one be taken, probably 
the best. Thomson's little book is admirable, and is 



WITH BRAINS, SIR. 53 

specially suited for a medical student, as its illustrations 
are drawn with great intelligence and exactness from 
chemistry and physiology. We know nothing more per- 
fect than the analysis, at page 348, of Sir H. Davy's 
beautiful experiments to account for the traces of an 
alkali, found when decomposing water by galvanism. It 
is quite exquisite, the hunt after and the unearthing of 
" the residual cause" This book has the great advan- 
tage of a clear, lively, and strong style. We can only 
give some short extracts. 

INDUCTION AND DEDUCTION. 

" We may define the inductive method as the process 
of discovering laws and rules from facts, and causes from 
effects ; and the deductive, as the method of deriving 
facts from laws, and effects from their causes." 

There is a valuable paragraph on anticipation and its 
uses — there is a power and desire of the mind to pro- 
ject itself from the known into the unknown, in the ex- 
pectation of finding what it is in search of. 

" This power of divination, this sagacity, which is the 
mother of all science, we may call anticipation. The 
intellect, with a dog-like instinct, will not hunt until it 
has found the scent. It must have some presage of the 
result before it will turn its energies to its attainment. 
The system of anatomy which has immortalized the 
name of Oken, is the consequence of a flash of antici- 
pation, which glanced through his mind when he picked 
up, in a chance walk, the skull of a deer, bleached by 
the weather, and exclaimed — ' It is a vertebral col- 
umn ! ' " 

" The man of science possesses principles — the man 
of art, not the less nobly gifted, is possessed and carried 



54 WITH BRAINS, SIR. 

away by them. The principles which art involves, sci- 
ence evolves. The truths on which the success of art 
depends lurk in the artist's mind in an undeveloped state, 
guiding his hand, stimulating his invention, balancing his 
judgment, but not appearing in regular propositions." 
"An art (that of medicine for instance) will of course 
admit into its limits, everything {and nothing else) which 
can conduce to the performance of its own proper work ; 
it recognizes no other principles of selection.'' 

" He who reads a book on logic, probably thinks no 
better when he rises up than when he sat down, but if 
any of the principles there unfolded cleave to his mem- 
ory, and he afterwards, perhaps unconsciously, shapes 
and corrects his thoughts by them, no doubt the whole 
powers of his reasoning receive benefit. In a word, 
every art, from reasoning to riding and rowing, is learned 
by assiduous practice, and if principles do any good, it is 
proportioned to the readiness with which they can be con- 
verted into rules, and the patient constancy with which 
they are applied in all our attempts at excellence." 

" A man can teach names to another man, but he can- 
not plant in another's mind that far higher gift — the 
power of naming" 

u Language is not only the vehicle of thought, it is a 
great and efficient instrument in thinking" 

" The whole of every science may be made the subject 
of teaching. Not so with art ; much of it is not teach- 
able." 

Coleridge's profound and brilliant, but unequal, and 
often somewhat nebulous Essay on Method, is worth 
reading over, were it only as an exercitation, and to 
impress on the mind the meaning and value of method. 
Method is the road by which you reach, or hope to 



WITH BRAINS, SIR. 55 

reach, a certain end ; it is a process. It is the best 
direction for the search after truth. System, again, 
which is often confounded with it, is a mapping out, a 
circumscription of knowledge, either already gained, or 
theoretically laid down as probable. Aristotle had a 
system which did much good, but also much mischief. 
Bacon was chiefly occupied in preparing and pointing 
out the way — the only way — of procuring knowledge. 
He left to others to systematize the knowledge after it 
was got ; but the pride and indolence of the human 
spirit lead it constantly to build systems on imperfect 
knowledge. It has the trick of filling up out of its own 
fancy what it has not the diligence, the humility, and 
the honesty, to seek in nature ; whose servant, and ar- 
ticulate voice, it ought to be. 

Descartes' little tract on Method is, like everything 
the lively and deep-souled Breton did, full of original 
and bright thought. 

Sir John Herschel's volume needs no praise. "We 
know no work of the sort, fuller of the best moral worth, 
as well as the highest philosophy. We fear it is more 
talked of than read. 

We would recommend the article in the Quarterly 
Review as first-rate, and written with great eloquence 
and grace. 

Sydney Smith's Sketches of Lectures on Moral Phi- 
losophy. Second Edition. 

Sedgwick's Discourse on the Studies at Cambridge, 
with a Preface and Appendix. Sixth Edition. 

We have put these two worthies here, not because 
we had forgotten them, — much less because we think 



56 WITH BRAINS, SIR. 

less of them than the others, especially Sydney. But 
because we bring them in at the end of our small en- 
tertainment, as we hand round a liqueur — be it Cura- 
90a, Kimmel, or old Glenlivet — after dinner, and end 
with the heterogeneous plum-pudding — that most Eng- 
lish of realized ideas. Sydney Smith's book is one of 
rare excellence, and well worthy of the study of men and 
women, though perhaps not transcendental enough for 
our modern philosophers, male and female. It is really 
astonishing how much of the best of everything, from 
patriotism to nonsense, is to be found in this volume of 
sketches. You may read it through, if your sides can 
bear such an accumulation of laughter, with great bene- 
fit ; and if you open it anywhere, you can't read three 
sentences without coming across some, it may be com- 
mon thought, and often original enough, better expressed 
and put than you ever before saw it. The lectures on 
the Affections, the Passions and Desires, and on Study, 
we would have everybody to read and enjoy. 

Sedgwick is a different, and, as a whole, an inferior 
man ; but a man every inch of him, and an Englishman 
too, in his thoughts, and in his fine mother wit and 
tongue. He has, in the midst of all his confusion and 
passionateness, the true instinct of philosophy — the 
true venatic sense of objective truth. We know noth- 
ing better in the main, than his demolition of what is 
untrue, and his reduction of what is absurd, and his 
taking the wind out of what is tympanitic, in the noto- 
rious Vestiges ; we don't say he always does justice to 
what is really good in it ; his mission is to execute jus- 
tice upon it, and that he does. His remarks on Oken 
and Owen, and his quotations from Dr. Clarke's admir- 
able paper on the Development of the Foetus, in the Cam- 



WITH BRAINS, SIR. 57 

bridge Philosophical Transactions, we would recommend 
to our medical friends. The very confusion of Sedgwick 
is the free outcome of a deep and racy nature ; it puts 
us in mind of what happened, when an Englishman was 
looking with astonishment and disgust at a Scotchman 
eating a singed sheep's head, and was asked by the eater 
what he thought of that dish ? " Dish, sir, do you call 
that a dish ? " " Dish or no dish," rejoined the Cale- 
donian, " there's a deal o' fine confused feedin' aboot it, 
let me tell you." 

We conclude these rambling remarks with a quota- 
tion from Arnauld, the friend of Pascal, and the intrepid 
antagonist of the Vatican and the Grand Monarque ; 
one of the noblest, freest, most untiring and honest intel- 
lects, our world has ever seen. " Why don't you rest 
sometimes ? " said his friend Nicole to him. " Rest ! 
why should I rest here ? haven't I an eternity to rest 
in ? " The following sentence from his " Port-Royal 
Logic" so well introduced and translated by Mr. Baynes, 
contains the gist of all we have been trying to say. It 
should be engraven on the tablets of every young stu- 
dent's heart — for the heart has to do with study as well 
as the head. 

" There is nothing more desirable than good sense and 
justness of mind, — all other qualities of mind are of 
limited use, but exactness of judgment is of general 
utility in every part and in all employments of life. 

" We are too apt to employ reason merely as an instru- 
ment for acquiring the sciences, whereas we ought to avail 
ourselves of the sciences, as an instrument for perfecting 
our reason ; justness of mind being infinitely more im- 
portant than all the speculative knowledge which we 
can obtain by means of sciences the most solid. This 



58 WITH BRAINS, SIR. 

ought to lead wise men to make their sciences the ex- 
ercise and not the occupation of their mental powers. 
Men are not born to employ all their time in measur- 
ing lines, in considering the various movements of mat- 
ter : their minds are too great, and their life too short, 
their time too precious, to be so engrossed ; but they are 
born to be just, equitable, and prudent, in all their 
thoughts, their actions, their business ; to these things 
they ought especially to train and discipline themselves." 

So, young friends, bring Brains to your work, 
and mix everything with them, and them with every- 
thing. Anna virumque, tools and a man to use them. 
Stir up, direct, and give free scope to Sir Joshua's 
" that" and try again, and again ; and look, oculo in- 
tento, acie acerrimd. Looking is a voluntary act, — it 
is the man within coming to the window ; seeing is a 
state, — passive and receptive, and, at the best, little 
more than registrative. 

Since writing the above, we have read with great 
satisfaction Dr. Forbes' Lecture delivered before the 
Chichester Literary Society and Mechanics' Institute, 
and published at their request. Its subject is, Happi- 
ness in its relation to Work and Knowledge. It is 
worthy of its author, and is, we think, more largely 
and finely imbued with his personal character, than any 
one other of his works that we have met with. We 
could not wish a fitter present for a young man 
starting on the game of life. It is a wise, cheerful, 
manly, and warm-hearted discourse on the words of 
Bacon, — " He that is wise, let him pursue some desire 
or other : for he that doth not affect some one thing in 
chief, unto him all things are distasteful and tedious." 
We will not spoil this little volume by giving any ac- 



WITH BRAESTS, SIR. 59 

count of it. Let our readers get it, and read it. The 
extracts from his Thesis, De Mentis Exercitatione et 
Felicitate exinde derivandd, are very curious — showing 
the native vigor and bent of his mind, and indicating 
also, at once the identity and the growth of his thoughts 
during the lapse of thirty-three years. 

We give the last paragraph, the sense and the filial 
affection of which are alike admirable. Having men- 
tioned to his hearers that they saw in himself a living 
illustration of the truth of his position, that happiness is 
a necessary result of knowledge and work, he thus con- 
cludes : — 

" If you would further desire to know to what besides 
I am chiefly indebted for so enviable a lot, I would say: 
— 1st, Because I had the good fortune to come into the 
world with a healthful frame, and with a sanguine tem- 
perament. 2d, Because I had no patrimony, and was 
therefore obliged to trust to my own exertions for a 
livelihood. 3d, Because I was born in a land where 
instruction is greatly prized and readily accessible. 
4th, Because I was brought up to a profession which 
not only compelled mental exercise, but supplied for its 
use materials of the most delightful and varied kind. 
And lastly and principally, because the good man to 
ivhom I oive my existence, had the foresight to knoiv 
what would be best for his children. He had the wis- 
dom, and the courage, and the exceeding love, to bestow 
all that could be spared of his worldly means, to purchase 
for his sons, that which is beyond 'price, education ; 
well judging that the means so expended, if hoarded for 
future use, would be, if not valueless, certainly evanes- 
cent, while the precious treasure for which they were 
exchanged, a cultivated and instructed mind, would not 



60 WITH BRAINS, SIR 



only last through life, but might be the fruitful source 
of treasures far more precious than itself. So equipped 
he sent them forth into the world to fight Life's battle, 
leaving the issue in the hand of God ; confident, how- 
ever, that though they might fail to achieve renown or 
to conquer Fortune, they possessed that which, if rightly 
used, could win for them the yet higher prize of hap- 
piness. 

Since this was written, many good books have ap- 
peared, but we would select three, which all young men 
should read and get — Hartley Coleridge's Lives of 
Northern Worthies, Thackeray's Letters of Brown the 
Elder, and Tom Brown's School-days — in spirit and 
in expression, we don't know any better models for 
manly courage, good sense, and feeling, and they are as 
well written as they are thought. 

There are the works of another man, one of the great- 
est, not only of our, but of any time, to which we can- 
not too earnestly draw our young readers. We mean 
the philosophical writings of Sir William Hamilton. 
We know no more invigorating, quickening, rectifying 
kind of exercise, than reading with a will, anything he 
has written upon permanently important subjects. There 
is a greatness and simplicity, a closeness of thought, a 
glance keen and wide, a play of the entire nature, and 
a truthfulness and downrightness, with an amount, and 
accuracy, and vivification of learning, such as we know 
of in no one other writer, ancient or modern — not even 
Leibnitz ; and we know no writings which so whole- 
somely at once exalt and humble the reader, make him 
feel what is in him, and what he can and may, as well 
as what he cannot, and need never hope to know. In 



WITH BRAINS, SIR. 61 

this respect, Hamilton is as grand as Pascal, and more 
simple; he exemplifies everywhere his own sublime 
adaptation of Scripture — unless a man become a little 
child, he cannot enter into the kingdom ; he enters the 
temple stooping, but he presses on, intrepid and alone, 
to the inmost adytum, worshipping the more the nearer 
he gets to the inaccessible shrine, whose veil no mortal 
hand has ever rent in twain. And we name after him, 
the thoughtful, candid, impressive little volume of his 
pupil, his friend, and his successor, Professor Fraser. 

The following passage from Sir William Hamilton's 
Dissertations, besides its wise thought, sounds in the 
ear like the pathetic and majestic sadness of a sym- 
phony by Beethoven : — 

" There are two sorts of ignorance : we philosophize 
to escape ignorance, and the consummation of our phi- 
losophy is ignorance ; we start from the one, we repose 
in the other ; they are the goals from which, and to 
which, we tend ; and the pursuit of knowledge is but a 
course between two ignorances, as human life is itself 
only a travelling from grave to grave. 

Tts /3io<s ; — 'Ek tv/i/Solo Oopibv, iirl rvfifiov oSevo). 

The highest reach of human science is the scientific 
recognition of human ignorance ; ' Qui nescit ignorare, 
ignorat scire/ This ' learned ignorance ' is the rational 
conviction by the human mind of its inability to tran- 
scend certain limits ; it is the knowledge of ourselves, — 
the science of man. This is accomplished by a demon- 
stration of the disproportion between what is to be 
known, and our faculties of knowing, — the dispropor- 
tion, to wit, between the infinite and the finite. In fact, 
the recognition of human ignorance, is not only the one 



62 WITH BRAINS, SIR. 

highest, but the one true, knowledge ; and its first-fruit, 
as has been said, is humility. Simple nescience is not 
proud ; consummated science is positively humble. For 
this knowledge it is not, which ' pufFeth up ; ' but its 
opposite, the conceit of false knowledge, — the conceit, 
in truth, as the apostle notices, of an ignorance of the 
very nature of knowledge : — 

'Nam nesciens quid scire sit, 
Te scire cuncta jactitas.' 

" But as our knowledge stands to Ignorance, so stands 
it also to Doubt. Doubt is the beginning and the end 
of our efforts to know ; for as it is true, — ' Alte dubitat 
qui altius credit,' so it is likewise true, — i Quo magis 
quaerimus magis dubitamus.' 

" The grand result of human wisdom is thus only a 
consciousness that what we know is as nothing to what 
we know not, (' Quantum est quod nescimus ! ') — an 
articulate confession, in fact, by our natural reason, of 
the truth declared in revelation, that ' now we see 
through a glass, darkly.' " 

His pupil writes in the same spirit and to the same 
end : — "A discovery, by means of reflection and mental 
experiment, of the limits of knowledge, is the highest 
and most universally applicable discovery of all ; it is 
the one through which our intellectual life most strik- 
ingly blends with the moral and practical part of human 
nature. Progress in knowledge is often paradoxically 
indicated by a diminution in the apparent bulk of what 
we know. Whatever helps to work off the dregs of 
false opinion, and to purify the intellectual mass — what- 
ever deepens our conviction of our infinite ignorance — 
really adds to, although it sometimes seems to diminish, 



WITH BRAINS, SIR. 63 

the rational possessions of man. This is the highest 
kind of merit that is claimed for Philosophy, by its 
earliest as well as by its latest representatives. It is 
by this standard that Socrates and Kant measure the 
chief results of their toil." 



BOOKS REFERRED TO. 

1. Arnauld's Port-Royal Logic; translated by T. S. Baynes. — 
2. Thomson's Outlines of the Necessary Laws of Thought. — 3. Des- 
cartes on the Method of Rightly Conducting the Reason, and Seeking 
Truth in the Sciences. — 4. Coleridge's Essay on Method. — 5. Whate- 
ly's Logic and Rhetoric; new and cheap edition. — 6. Mill's Logic; 
new and cheap edition. — 7. Dugald Stewart's Outlines. — 8. Sir 
John Herschel's Preliminary Dissertation. — 9. Quarterly Review, 
vol. Ixviii; Article upon Whewell's Philosophy of Inductive Sciences. 
— 10. Isaac Taylor's Elements of Thought. — 11. Sir William Hamil- 
ton's edition of Reid; Dissertations; and Lectures. — 12. Professor 
Fraser's Rational Philosophy. — 13. Locke on the Conduct of the 
Understanding. 



THE MYSTERY OF BLACK AND TAN. 



" The reader must remember that my worh is concerning the aspects of 
things only." — Ruskin. 




THE MYSTERY OF BLACK AND TAN. 

|E, — the Sine Qua Non, the Duchess, the 
Sputchard, the Dutchard, the Ricapicticapic, 
Oz and Oz, the Maid of Lorn, and myself, 
— left Crieff some fifteen years ago, on a 
bright September morning, soon after daybreak, in a gig. 
It was a morning still and keen : the sun sending his 
level shafts across Strathearn, and through the thin mist 
over its river hollows, to the fierce Aberuchil Hills, and 
searching out the dark blue shadows in the corries of 
Benvorlich. But who and how many are "we?" To 
make you as easy as we all were, let me tell you we 
were four ; and are not these dumb friends of ours per- 
sons rather than things? is not their soul ampler, as 
Plato would say, than their body, and contains rather 
than is contained ? Is not what lives and wills in them, 
and is affectionate, as spiritual, as immaterial, as truly re- 
moved from mere flesh, blood, and bones, as that soul 
which is the proper self of their master? And when 
we look each other in the face, as I now look in Dick's, 
who is lying in his " corny " by the fireside, and he in 
mine, is it not as much the dog within looking from out 
his eyes — the windows of his soul — as it is the man 
from his? 

The Sine Qua Non, who will not be pleased at be- 



68 THE MYSTERY OF BLACK AND TAN. 

ing spoken of, is such an one as that vain-glorious and 
chivalrous Ulric von Hiitten — the Reformation's man 
of wit, and of the world, and of the sword, who slew 
Monkery with the wild laughter of his Epistolce Obscu- 
rorum Virorum — had in his mind when he wrote thus 
to his friend Fredericus Piscator (Mr. Fred. Fisher), 
on the 19th May 1519, " Da mild uxorem, Friderice, et 
ut scias qualem, venustam, adolescentulam, probe educa- 
tam, hilarem, verecundam, patientem" " Qualem" he 
lets Frederic understand in the sentence preceding, is 
one " qua cum ludam, qua jocos conferam, amozniores 
et leviusculas fabulas misceam, ubi sollicitudinis aciem 
obtundam, curarum cestus mitigem" And if you would 
know more of the Sine Qua Non, and in English, for 
the world is dead to Latin now, you will find her name 
and nature in Shakspeare's words, when King Henry 
the Eighth says, " go thy ways." 

TJte Duchess, alias all the other names till you come 
to the Maid of Lorn, is a rough, gnarled, incomparable 
little bit of a terrier, three parts Dandie-Dinmont, and 
one part — chiefly in tail and hair — cocker : her father 
being Lord Rutherfurd's famous " Dandie," and her 
mother the daughter of a Skye, and a light-hearted 
Cocker. The Duchess is about the size and weight of 
a rabbit ; but has a soul as big, as fierce, and as faithful 
as had Meg Merrilies, with a nose as black as Topsy's ; 
and is herself every bit as game and queer as that de- 
licious imp of darkness and of Mrs. Stowe. Her legs 
set her long slim body about two inches and a half from 
the ground, making her very like a huge caterpillar or 
hairy oobit — her two eyes, dark and full, and her shin- 
ing nose, being all of her that seems anything but hair. 
Her tail was a sort of stump, in size and in look very 



THE MYSTERY OF BLACK AND TAN. 69 

much like a spare foreleg, stuck in anywhere to be near. 
Her color was black above and a rich brown below, with 
two dots of tan above the eyes, which dots are among 
the deepest of the mysteries of Black and Tan. 

This strange little being I had known for some years, 
but had only possessed about a month. She and her 
pup (a young lady called Smoot, which means smolt, a 
young salmon), were given me by the widow of an hon- 
est and drunken — as much of the one as of the other — 
Edinburgh street-porter, a native of Badenoch, as a 
legacy from him and a fee from her for my attendance 
on the poor man's death-bed. But my first sight of the 
Duchess was years before in Broughton Street, when I 
saw her sitting bolt upright, begging, imploring, with 
those little rough four leggies, and those yearning, beau- 
tiful eyes, all the world, or any one, to help her master, 
w T ho was lying " mortal " in the kennel. I raised him, 
and with the help of a ragged Samaritan, who was only 
less drunk than he, I got Macpherson — he held from 
Glen Truim — home ; the excited doggie trotting off, 
and looking back eagerly to show us the way. I never 
again passed the Porters' Stand without speaking to 
her. After Malcolm's burial I took possession of her ; 
she escaped to the wretched house, but as her mistress 
was off to Kingussie, and the door shut, she gave a pit- 
iful howl or two, and was forthwith back at my door, 
with an impatient, querulous bark. And so this is our 
second of the four ; and is she not deserving of as many 
names as any other Duchess, from her of Medina Si- 
donia downwards ? 

A fierier little soul never dwelt in a queerer or 
stancher body ; see her huddled up, and you would think 
her a bundle of hair, or a bit of old mossy wood, or a 



70 THE MYSTERY OF BLACK AND TAN. 

slice of heathery turf, with some red soil underneath ; 
but speak to her, or give her a cat to deal with, be it 
bigger than herself, and what an incarnation of affection, 
energy, and fury — what a fell unquenchable little ruf- 
fian. 

The Maid of Lorn was a chestnut mare, a broken- 
down racer, thorough-bred as Beeswing, but less for- 
tunate in her life, and I fear not so happy occasione mor- 
tis : unlike the Duchess, her body was greater and finer 
than her soul ; still she was a ladylike creature, sleek, 
slim, nervous, meek, willing, and fleet. She had been 
thrown down by some brutal half-drunk Forfarshire laird, 
when he put her wildly and with her wind gone, at the 
last hurdle on the North Inch at the Perth races. She 
was done for and bought for ten pounds by the landlord 
of the Drummond Arms, Crieff, who had been taking as 
much money out of her, and putting as little corn into 
her as was compatible with life, purposing to run her 
for the Consolation Stakes at Stirling. Poor young 
lady, she was a sad sight — broken in back, in knees, in 
character, and wind — in everything but temper, which 
was as sweet and all-enduring as Penelope's or our own 
Enid's. 

Of myself, the fourth, I decline making any account. 
Be it sufficient that I am the Dutchard's master, and 
drove the gig. 

It was, as I said, a keen and bright morning, and 
the S. Q. N. feeling chilly, and the Duchess being away 
after a cat up a back entry, doing a chance stroke of 
business, and the mare looking only half breakfasted, I 
made them give her a full feed of meal and water, 
and stood by and enjoyed her enjoyment. It seemed 
too good to be true, and she looked up every now and 



THE MYSTERY OF BLACK AND TAN. 71 

then in the midst of her feast, with a mild wonder. 
Away she and I bowled down the sleeping village, all 
overrun with sunshine, the dumb idiot man and the 
birds alone up, for the ostler was off to hjs straw. There 
was the S. Q. N. and her small panting friend, who had 
lost the cat, but had got what philosophers say is bet- 
ter — the chase. " Nous ne cherchons jamais les choses, 
mats la recherche des choses" says Pascal. The Duch- 
ess would substitute for les choses — les chats. Pursuit, 
not possession, was her passion. We all got in, and off 
set the Maid, who was in excellent heart, quite gay, 
pricking her ears and casting up her head, and rattling 
away at a great pace. 

We baited at St. Fillans, and again cheered the heart 
of the Maid with unaccustomed corn — the S. Q. N., 
Duchie, and myself, going up to the beautiful rising 
ground at the back of the inn, and lying on the fragrant 
heather looking at the Loch, with its mild gleams and 
shadows, and its second heaven looking out from its 
depths, the wild, rough mountains of Glenartney tower- 
ing opposite. Duchie, I believe, was engaged in minor 
business close at hand, and caught and ate several large 
flies and a humble-bee ; she was very fond of this small 
game. 

There is not in all Scotland, or as far as I have seen 
in all else, a more exquisite twelve miles of scenery 
than that between Crieff and the head of Lochearn. 
Ochtertyre, and its woods ; Benchonzie, the head-quar- 
ters of the earthquakes, only lower than Benvorlich ; 
Strowan ; Lawers, with its grand old Scotch pines ; 
Comrie, with the wild Lednoch ; Dunira ; and St. Fil- 
lans, where we are now lying, and where the poor thor- 
oughbred is tucking in her corn. We start after two 



72 THE MYSTERY OF BLACK AND TAN. 

hours of dreaming in the half sunlight, and rumble ever 
and anon over an earthquake, as the common folk call 
these same hollow, resounding rifts in the rock beneath, 
and arriving at the old inn at Lochearnhead, have a 
tousie tea. In the evening, when the day was darkening 
into night, Duchie and I, — the S. Q. N. remaining to 
read and rest, — walked up Glen Ogle. It was then 
in its primeval state, the new road non-existent, and the 
old one staggering up and down and across that most 
original and Cyclopean valley, deep, threatening, sav- 
age, and yet beautiful — 

" Where rocks were rudely heaped, and rent 
As by a spirit turbulent ; 

Where sights were rough, and sounds were wild, 
And everything unreconciled; " 

with flocks of mighty boulders, straying all over it. 
Some far up, and frightful to look at, others huddled 
down in the river, immane pecus, and one huge un- 
loosened fellow, as big as a manse, up aloft watching 
them, like old Proteus with his calves, as if they had 
fled from the sea by stress of weather, and had been 
led by their ancient herd altos visere monies — a wilder, 
more " unreconciled " place I know not ; and now that 
the darkness was being poured into it, those big fellows 
looked bigger, and hardly " canny." 

Just as we were turning to come home — Duchie 
unwillingly, as she had much multifarious, and as usual 
fruitless hunting to do — she and I were startled by 
seeing a dog in the side of the hill, where the soil had 
been broken. She barked and I stared ; she trotted 
consequentially up and snuffed more canino, and I went 
nearer : it never moved, and on coming quite close I 
saw as it were the image of a terrier, a something that 



THE MYSTERY OF BLACK AND TAN. 73 

made me think of an idea unrealized ; the rough, short, 
scrubby heather and dead grass, made a color and a 
coat just like those of a good Highland terrier — a 
sort of pepper and salt this one was — and below, the 
broken soil, in which there was some iron and clay, 
with old gnarled roots, for all the world like its odd, 
bandy, and sturdy legs. Duchie seemed not so easily 
unbeguiled as I was, and kept staring, and snuffing, and 
growling, but did not touch it, — seemed afraid. I left 
and looked again, and certainly it was very odd the 
growing resemblance to one of the indigenous, hairy, 
low-legged dogs, one sees all about the Highlands, ter- 
riers, or earthy ones. 

We came home, and told the S. Q. N. our joke. I 
dreamt of that visionary terrier, that son of the soil, 
all night ; and in the very early morning, leaving the 
S. Q. N. asleep, I walked up with the Duchess to the 
same spot. What a morning ! it was before sunrise, at 
least before he had got above Benvorlich. The loch 
was lying in a faint mist, beautiful exceedingly, as if 
half veiled and asleep, the cataract of Edinample roar- 
ing less loudly than in the night, and the old castle of 
the Lords of Lochow, in the shadow of the hills, among 
its trees, might be seen 

" Sole sitting by the shore of old romance." 

There was still gloom in Glen Ogle, though the beams 
of the morning were shooting up into the broad fields 
of the sky. I was looking back and down, w T hen I 
heard the Duchess bark sharply, and then give a cry 
of fear, and on turning round, there was she with as 
much as she had of tail between her legs, where I never 
saw it before, and her small Grace, without noticing me 



74 THE MYSTERY OF BLACK AND TAN. 

or my cries, making down to the inn and her mistress, 
a hairy hurricane. I walked on to see what it was, and 
there in the same spot as last night, in the bank, was a 
real dog — no mistake ; it was not, as the day before, a 
mere surface or spectrum, or ghost of a dog ; it was 
plainly round and substantial ; it was much developed 
since eight p. m. As I looked, it moved slightly, and 
as it were by a sort of shiver, as if an electric shock 
(and why not ?) was being administered by a law of na- 
ture ; it had then no tail, or rather had an odd amor- 
phous look in that region ; its eye, for it had one — it was 
seen in profile — looked to my profane vision like (why 
not actually ?) a huge blaeberry (vaccinium Myrtillus, it 
is well to be scientific) black and full ; and I thought, — 
but dare not be sure, and had no time or courage to be 
minute, — that where the nose should be, there was a 
small shining black snail, probably the Limax niger of 
M. de Ferussac, curled up, and if you look at any dog's 
nose you will be struck with the typical resemblance, in 
the corrugations and moistness and jetty blackness of the 
one to the other, and of the other to the one. He was 
a strongly-built, wiry, bandy, and short-legged dog. As 
I was staring upon him, a beam — Oh, first creative 
beam ! — sent from the sun — 

" Like as an arrow from a bow, 
Shot by an archer strong " — 

as he looked over Benvorlich's shoulder, and piercing a 
cloudlet of mist which clung close to him, and filling it 
with whitest radiance, struck upon that eye or berry, 
and lit up that nose or snail : in an instant he sneezed 
(the nisus (sneezus ?) formativus of the ancients) ; that 
eye quivered and was quickened, and with a shudder — 



THE MYSTERY OF BLACK AND TAN. 75 

such as a horse executes with that curious muscle of the 
skin, of which we have a mere fragment in our neck, the 
Platysma Myoides, and which doubtless has been les- 
sened as we lost our distance from the horse-type — 
which dislodged some dirt and stones and dead heather, 
and doubtless endless beetles, and, it may be, made some 
near weasel open his other eye, up went his tail, and out 
he came, lively, entire, consummate, warm, wagging his 
tail, I was going to say like a Christian, I mean like an 
ordinary dog. Then flashed upon me the solution of the 
Mystery of Black and Tan in all its varieties : the body, 
its upper part gray or black or yellow according to the 
upper soil and herbs, heather, bent, moss, &c. ; the belly 
and feet, red or tan or light fawn, according to the na- 
ture of the deep soil, be it ochrey, ferruginous, light clay, 
or comminuted mica slate. And wonderfullest of all, 
the Dots of Tan above the eyes — and who has not 
noticed and wondered as to the philosophy of them ? — 
1 saw made by the two fore feet, wet and clayey, being 
put briskly up to his eyes as he sneezed that genetic, 
vivifying sneeze, and leaving their mark, forever. 

He took to me quite pleasantly, by virtue of " natural 
selection," and has accompanied me thus far in our 
"struggle for life," and he, and the S. Q. N., and the 
Duchess, and the Maid, returned that day to Crieff, and 
were friends all our days. I was a little timid when 
he was crossing a burn lest he should wash away his 
feet, but he merely colored the water, and every day 
less and less, till in a fortnight I could wash him with- 
out fear of his becoming a solution, or fluid extract of 
dog, and thus resolving the mystery back into itself. 

The mare's days were short. She won the Consola- 
tion Stakes at Stirling, and was found dead next morn- 



76 THE MYSTERY OF BLACK A1STD TAN. 

ing in Gibb's stables. The Duchess died in a good old 
age, as may be seen in the history of " Our Dogs." 
The S. Q. N., and the parthenogenesic earth-born, the 
Cespes Vivus — whom we sometimes called Joshua, be- 
cause he was the Son of None (Nun), and even Mel- 
chisedec has been whispered, but only that, and Fitz- 
Memnon, as being as it were a son of the Sun, some- 
times the Autochthon avrdxOovos ; (indeed, if the rela- 
tion of the coup de soleil and the blaeberry had not been 
plainly causal and effectual, I might have called him 
Filius Gunni, for at the very moment of that shudder, 
by which he leapt out of non-life into life, the Mar- 
quis's gamekeeper fired his rifle up the hill, and brought 
down a stray young stag,) these two are happily with 
me still, and at this moment she is out on the grass in 
a low easy-chair, reading Emilie Carlen's Brilliant Mar- 
riage, and Dick is lying at her feet, watching, with 
cocked ears, some noise in the ripe wheat, possibly a 
chicken, for, poor fellow, he has a weakness for worry- 
ing hens, and such small deer, when there is a dearth of 
greater. If any, as is not unreasonable, doubt me and 
my story, they may come and see Dick. I assure them 
he is well worth seeing. 



HER LAST HALF-GROWN. 



Once I had friends — though now by all forsaken ; 
Once I had parents — they are now in heaven. 
I had a home once 

Worn out with anguish, sin, and cold, and hunger, 
Down sunk the outcast, death had seized her senses. 
There did the stranger find her in the morning — 
God had released her. 

Southey. 



HER LAST HALF-CROWN. 



j^fQ^VUGH MILLER, the geologist, journalist, 
i l(rfrfl>l £ and man of genius, was sitting in his news- 




paper office late one dreary winter night. 
\ The clerks had all left and he was prepar- 
ing to go, when a quick rap came to the door. He said 
" Come in," and, looking towards the entrance, saw a 
little ragged child all wet with sleet. " Are ye Hugh 
Miller?" "Yes." "Mary Duff wants ye." "What 
does she want ? " " She's deein." Some misty recollec- 
tion of the name made him at once set out, and with his 
well-known plaid and stick, he was soon striding after 
the child, who trotted through the now deserted High 
Street, into the Canongate. By the time he got to the 
Old Playhouse Close, Hugh had revived his memory 
of Mary Duff : a lively girl who had been bred up be- 
side him in Cromarty. The last time he had seen her 
was at a brother mason's marriage, where Mary was 
"best maid," and he "best man." He seemed still to 
see her bright young careless face, her tidy short gown, 
and her dark eyes, and to hear her bantering, merry 
tongue. 

Down the close went the ragged little woman, and up 
an outside stair, Hugh keeping near her with difficulty ; 
in the passage she held out her hand and touched him ; 



80 HER LAST HALF-CROWN. 

taking it in his great palm, he felt that she wanted a 
thumb. Finding her way like a cat through the dark- 
ness, she opened a door, and saying " That's her ! " van- 
ished. By the light of a dying fire he saw lying in the 
corner of the large empty room something like a wom- 
an's clothes, and on drawing nearer became aware of a 
thin pale face and two dark eyes looking keenly but help- 
lessly up at him. The eyes were plainly Mary Duff's, 
though he could recognize no other feature. She wept 
silently, gazing steadily at him. "Are you Mary Duff?" 
" It's a' that's o' me, Hugh." She then tried to speak to 
him, something plainly of great urgency, but she couldn't, 
and seeing that she was very ill, and was making herself 
worse, he put half-a-crown into her feverish hand, and 
said he would call again in the morning. He could get 
no information about her from the neighbors ; they were 
surly or asleep. 

When he returned next morning, the little girl met 
him at the stair-head, and said, " She's deid." He went 
in, and found that it was true ; there she lay, the fire out, 
her face placid, and the likeness to her maiden self re- 
stored. Hugh thought he would have known her now, 
even with those bright black eyes closed as they were, in 
ceternum. 

Seeking out a neighbor, he said he would like to bury 
Mary Duff, and arranged for the funeral with an under- 
taker in the close. Little seemed to be known of the 
poor outcast, except that she was a " licht," or, as Solo- 
mon would have said, a " strange woman." " Did she 
drink ? " " Whiles." 

On the day of the funeral one or two residents in the 
close accompanied him to the Canongate Churchyard. 
He observed a decent looking little old woman watching 



HER LAST HALF-CROWN. 81 

them, and following at a distance, though the day was 
wet and bitter. After the grave was filled, and he had 
taken off his hat, as the men finished their business 
by putting on and slapping the sod, he saw this old 
woman remaining. She came up and, courtesying, said, 
" Ye wad ken that lass, sir ? " " Yes ; I knew her 
when she was young." The woman then burst into 
tears, and told Hugh that she " keepit a bit shop at the 
Closemooth, and Mary dealt wi' me, and aye paid reglar, 
and I was feared she was dead, for she had been a month 
awin' me half-a-crown : " and then with a look and voice 
of awe, she told him how on the night he was sent for, 
and immediately after he had left, she had been awak- 
ened by some one in her room ; and by her bright fire — 
for she was a bein, well-to-do body — she had seen the 
wasted dying creature, who came forward and said, 
" Wasn't it half-a-crown ? " " Yes." " There it is," 
and putting it under the bolster, vanished ! 

Alas for Mary Duff! her career had been a sad one 
since the day when she had stood side by side with 
Hugh at the wedding of their friends. Her father died 
not long after, and her mother supplanted her in the 
affections of the man to whom she had given her heart. 
The shock was overwhelming, and made home intolera- 
ble. Mary fled from it blighted and embittered, and 
after a life of shame and sorrow, crept into the corner 
of her wretched garret, to die deserted and alone ; giv- 
ing evidence in her latest act that honesty had survived 
amid the wreck of nearly every other virtue. 

" My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your 
ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are 
higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your 
ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts." 
6 



OUR DOGS. 



" The misery of keeping a dog, is his dying so soon ; but to be sure, if 
he lived for fifty years, and then died, what would become of me f " — 
Sir Walter Scott. 

" There is in every animals eye a dim image and gleam of humanity, 
a flash of strange light through which their life looks out and up to our 
great mystery of command over them, and claims the fellowship of the 
creature if not of the soid" — Ruskin. 



To Sir Walter and Lady Trevelyarts 
glum and faithful 

"PETER," 
with much regard. 




OUR DOGS. 

WAS bitten severely by a little dog when 
with my mother at Moffat Wells, being 
then three years of age, and I have re- 
mained "bitten" ever since in the matter 
of dogs. I remember that little dog, and can at this 
moment not only recall my pain and terror — I have 
no doubt I was to blame — but also her face ; and were I 
allowed to search among the shades in the cynic Elysian 
fields, I could pick her out still. All my life I have been 
familiar with these faithful creatures, making friends of 
them, and speaking to them ; and the only time I ever 
addressed the public, about a year after being bitten, 
was at the farm of Kirklaw Hill, near Biggar, when the 
text, given out from an empty cart in which the plough- 
men had placed me, was "Jacob's dog," and my entire 
sermon was as follows : — " Some say that Jacob had a 
black clog (the o very long), and some say that Jacob 
had a white dog, but / (imagine the presumption of four 
years !) say Jacob had a brown clog, and a brown dog it 
shall be." 

I had many intimacies from this time onwards — Baw- 
tie, of the inn ; Keeper, the carrier's bull-terrier ; Tiger, 
a huge tawny mastiff from Edinburgh, which I think 
must have been an uncle of Rab's ; all the sheep dogs 



86 OUR DOGS. 

at Callands — Spring, Mavis, Yarrow, Swallow, Cheviot, 
etc. ; but it was not till I was at college, and my brother 
at the High School, that we possessed a dog. 



TOBY 

Was the most utterly shabby, vulgar, mean-looking cur 
I ever beheld : in one word, a tyke. He had not one 
good feature except his teeth and eyes, and his bark, if 
that can be called a feature. He was not ugly enough 
to be interesting ; his color black and white, his shape 
leggy and clumsy ; altogether what Sydney Smith would 
have called an extraordinarily ordinary dog ; and, as I 
have said, not even greatly ugly, or, as the Aberdonians 
have it, bonnie wi' ill-fauredness. My brother William 
found him the centre of attraction to a multitude of small 
blackguards who were drowning him slowly in Lochend 
Loch, doing their best to lengthen out the process, and 
secure the greatest amount of fun with the nearest ap- 
proach to death. Even then Toby showed his great in- 
tellect by pretending to be dead, and thus gaining time 
and an inspiration. William bought him for twopence, 
and as he had it not, the boys accompanied him to Pilrig 
Street, when I happened to meet him, and giving the 
twopence to the biggest boy, had the satisfaction of see- 
ing a general engagement of much severity, during 
which the twopence disappeared ; one penny going off 
with a very small and swift boy, and the other vanishing 
hopelessly into the grating of a drain. 

Toby was for weeks in the house unbeknown to any 
one but ourselves two and the cook, and from my grand- 
mother's love of tidiness and hatred of dogs and of dirt, 



TOBY. 87 

I believe she would have expelled " him whom we saved 
from drowning," had not he, in his straightforward way, 
walked into my father's bedroom one night when he was 
bathing his feet, and introduced himself with a wag of 
his tail, intimating a general willingness to be happy. 
My father laughed most heartily, and at last Toby, hav- 
ing got his way to his bare feet, and having begun to 
lick his soles and between his toes with his small rough 
tongue, my father gave such an unwonted shout of laugh- 
ter, that we — grandmother, sisters, and all of us — went 
in. Grandmother might argue with all her energy and 
skill, but as surely as the pressure of Tom Jones' infan- 
tile fist upon Mr. Allworthy's forefinger undid all the 
arguments of his sister, so did Toby's tongue and fun 
prove too many for grandmother's eloquence. I some- 
how think Toby must have been up to all this, for I 
think he had a peculiar love for my father ever after, 
and regarded grandmother from that hour with a careful 
and cool eye. 

Toby, when full grown, was a strong, coarse dog; 
coarse in shape, in countenance, in hair, and in manner. 
I used to think that, according to the Pythagorean doc- 
trine, he must have been, or been going to be a Gil- 
merton carter. He was of the bull-terrier variety, coars- 
ened through much mongrelism and a dubious and varied 
ancestry. His teeth were good, and he had a large skull, 
and a rich bark as of a dog three times his size, and a 
tail which I never saw equalled — indeed it was a tail 
per se ; it was of immense girth and not short, equal 
throughout like a policeman's baton ; the machinery for 
working it was of great power, and acted in a way, as 
far as I have been able to discover, quite original. We 
called it his ruler. 



88 OUR DOGS. 

When he wished to get into the house, he first whined 
gently, then growled, then gave a sharp hark, and then 
came a resounding, mighty stroke which shook the house ; 
this, after much study and watching, we found was clone 
by his bringing the entire length of his solid tail flat 
upon the door, with a sudden and vigorous stroke ; it 
was quite a tour de force or a coup de queue, and he was 
perfect in it at once, his first bang authoritative, having 
been as masterly and telling as his last. 

With all this inbred vulgar air, he was a dog of great 
moral excellence — affectionate, faithful, honest up to his 
light, with an odd humor as peculiar and as strong as his 
tail. My father, in his reserved way, was very fond of 
him, and there must have been very funny scenes with 
them, for we heard bursts of laughter issuing from his 
study when they two were by themselves ; there was 
something in him that took that grave, beautiful, melan- 
choly face. One can fancy him in the midst of his 
books, and sacred work and thoughts, pausing and look- 
ing at the secular Toby, who was looking out for a smile 
to begin his rough fun, and about to end by coursing and 
gurrirf round the room, upsetting my father's books, laid 
out on the floor for consultation, and himself nearly at 
times, as he stood watching him — and off his guard and 
shaking with laughter. Toby had always a great desire 
to accompany my father up to town ; this my father's 
good taste and sense of dignity, besides his fear of losing 
his friend (a vain fear !), forbade, and as the decision of 
character of each was great and nearly equal, it was 
often a drawn game. Toby ultimately, by making it his 
entire object, triumphed. He usually was nowhere to be 
seen on my father leaving ; he however saw him, and 
lay in wait at the head of the street, and up Leith Walk 



TOBY. 89 

he kept him in view from the opposite side like a detec- 
tive, and then, when he knew it was hopeless to hound 
him home, he crossed unblushingly over, and joined com- 
pany, excessively rejoiced of course. 

One Sunday he had gone with him to church, and left 
him at the vestry door. The second psalm was given 
out, and my father was sitting back in the pulpit, when 
the door at its back, up which he came from the vestry, 
was seen to move, and gently open, then, after a long 
pause, a black shining snout pushed its way steadily into 
the congregation, and was followed by Toby's entire body. 
He looked somewhat abashed, but snuffing his friend, he 
advanced as if on thin ice, and not seeing him, put his 
forelegs on the pulpit, and behold there he was, his own 
familiar chum. I watched all this, and anything more 
beautiful than his look of happiness, of comfort, of entire 
ease when he beheld his friend, — the smoothing down 
of the anxious ears, the swing of gladness of that mighty 
tail, — I don't expect soon to see. My father quietly 
opened the door, and Toby was at his feet and invisible 
to all but himself; had he sent old George Peaston, the 
" minister's man," to put him out, Toby would probably 
have shown his teeth, and astonished George. He slunk 
home as soon as he could, and never repeated that 
exploit. 

I never saw in any other dog the sudden transition 
from discretion, not to say abject cowardice, to blazing 
and permanent valor. From his earliest years he show- 
ed a general meanness of blood, inherited from many 
generations of starved, bekicked, and down-trodden fore- 
fathers and mothers, resulting in a condition of intense 
abjectness in all matters of personal fear ; anybody, even 
a beggar, by a gowl and a threat of eye, could send him 



90 OUR DOGS. 

off howling by anticipation, with that mighty tail between 
his legs. But it was not always so to be, and I had the 
privilege of seeing courage, reasonable, absolute, and for 
life, spring up in Toby at once, as did Athene from the 
skull of Jove. It happened thus : — 

Toby was in the way of hiding his culinary bones in 
the small gardens before his own and the neighboring 
doors. Mr. Scrymgeour, two doors off, a bulky, chol- 
eric, red-haired, red-faced man — torvo vultu — was, by 
the law of contrast, a great cultivator of flowers, and he 
had often scowled Toby into all but non-existence by a 
stamp of his foot and a glare of his eye. One day his 
gate being open, in walks Toby with a huge bone, and 
making a hole where Scrymgeour had two minutes be- 
fore been planting some precious slip, the name of which 
on paper and on a stick Toby made very light of, sub- 
stituted his bone, and was engaged covering it, or think- 
ing he was covering it up with his shovelling nose (a 
very odd relic of paradise in the dog), when S. spied 
him through the inner glass door, and was out upon 
him like the Assyrian, with a terrible gowl. I watched 
them. Instantly Toby made straight at him with a roar 
too, and an eye more torve than Scrymgeour's, who, re- 
treating without reserve, fell prostrate, there is reason 
to believe, in his own lobby. Toby contented him- 
self with proclaiming his victory at the door, and re- 
turning finished his bone-planting at his leisure ; the 
enemy, who had scuttled behind the glass-door, glaring 
at him. 

From this moment Toby was an altered dog. Pluck 
at first sight was lord of all ; from that time dated his 
first tremendous deliverance of tail against the door, 
which we called " come listen to my tail." That very 



TOBY. 91 

evening he paid a visit to Leo, next door's dog, a big, 
tyrannical bully and coward, which its master thought 
a Newfoundland, but whose pedigree we knew better ; 
this brute continued the same system of chronic exter- 
mination which was interrupted at Lochend, — having 
Toby down among his feet, and threatening him with 
instant death two or three times a day. To him Toby 
paid a visit that very evening, down into his den, and 
walked about, as much as to say " Come on, Macduff! " 
but Macduff did not come on, and henceforward there 
was an armed neutrality, and they merely stiffened up 
and made their backs rigid, pretended each not to see the 
other, walking solemnly round, as is the manner of dogs. 
Toby worked his new-found faculty thoroughly, but with 
discretion. He killed cats, astonished beggars, kept his 
ow r n in his own garden against all comers, and came off 
victorious in several well-fought battles ; but he was not 
quarrelsome or foolhardy. It was very odd how his car- 
riage changed, holding his head up, and how much pleas- 
anter he was at home. To my father, next to William, 
who was his Humane Society man, he remained stanch. 
And what of his end ? for the misery of dogs is that they 
die so soon, or as Sir Walter says, it is well they do ; for 
if they lived as long as a Christian, and we liked them in 
proportion, and they then died, he said that was a thing 
he could not stand. 

His exit was miserable, and had a strange poetic or 
tragic relation to his entrance. My father was out of 
town ; I was away in England. Whether it was that 
the absence of my father had relaxed bis power of moral 
restraint, or whether through neglect of the servant he 

7 CO 

had been desperately hungry, or most likely both being 
true, Toby was discovered with the remains of a cold 



92 OUR DOGS. 

leg of mutton, on which he had made an ample meal ; * 
this he was in vain endeavoring to plant as of old, in 
the hope of its remaining undiscovered till to-morrow's 
hunger returned, the whole shank bone sticking up un- 
mistakably. This was seen by our excellent and Rada- 
manthine grandmother, who pronounced sentence on the 
instant ; and next day, as "William was leaving for the 
High School, did he in the sour morning, through an 
easterly kaur, behold him " whom he saved from drown- 
ing," and whom, with better results than in the case of 
Launce and Crab, he had taught, as if one should say, 
" thus would I teach a dog," dangling by his own chain 
from his own lamp-post, one of his hind feet just touch- 
ing the pavement, and his body preternaturally elongated. 
William found him dead and warm, and falling in 
with the milk-boy at the head of the street, questioned 
him, and discovered that he was the executioner, and 
had got twopence, he — Toby's every morning crony, 
who met him and accompanied him up the street, and 
licked the outside of his can — had, with an eye to speed 
and convenience, and a want of taste, not to say principle 
and affection, horrible still to think of, suspended Toby's 
animation beyond all hope. William instantly fell upon 
him, upsetting his milk and cream, and gave him a 
thorough licking, to his own intense relief; and, being 
late, he got from Pyper, who was a martinet, the cus- 
tomary palmies, which he bore with something approach- 
ing to pleasure. So died Toby ; my father said little, 
but he missed and mourned his friend. 

1 Toby was in the state of the shepherd boy whom George Webster 
met in Glenshee, and asked, " My man, were you ever fou' V " " Ay, 
aince " speaking slowly, as if remembering — "Ay, aince." "What 
on?" "Cauld mutton!" 



WYLIE. 93 

There is reason to believe that bv one of those curi- 
ous intertwistings of existence, the milk-boy was that 
one of the drowning party who got the penny of the 
twopence. 



WYLIE. 

Our next friend was an exquisite shepherd's dog ; 
fleet, thin-flanked, dainty, and handsome as a small gray- 
hound, with all the grace of silky waving black and 
tan hair. We got him thus. Being then young and 
keen botanists, and full of the knowledge and love of 
Tweedside, having been on every hill-top from Muckle 
Mendic to Hundleshope and the Lee Pen, and having 
fished every water from Tarth to the Leithen, we dis- 
covered early in spring that young Stewart, author of 
an excellent book on natural history, a young man of 
great promise and early death, had found the Buxbau- 
mia aphylla, a beautiful and odd-looking moss, west of 
Newbie heights, in the very month we were that mo- 
ment in. We resolved to start next day. We walked 
to Peebles, and then up Haystoun Glen to the cottage 
of Adam Cairns, the aged shepherd of the Newbie hir- 
sel, of whom we knew, and who knew of us from his 
daughter, Nancy Cairns, a servant with Uncle Aitken 
of Callands. We found our way up the burn with dif- 
ficulty, as the evening was getting dark ; and on getting 
near the cottage heard them at worship. We got in, 
and made ourselves known, and got a famous tea, and 
such cream and oat cake ! — old Adam looking on us as 
" clean dementit " to come out for " a bit moss," which, 
however, he knew, and with some pride said he would 



94 OUR DOGS. 

take us in the morning to the place. As we were going 
into a box bed for the night, two young men came in, 
and said they were " gaun to burn the water." Off we 
set. It was a clear, dark, starlight, frosty night. They 
had their leisters and tar torches, and it was something 
worth seeing — the wild flame, the young fellows strik- 
ing the fish coming to the light — how splendid they 
looked with the light on their scales, coming out of the 
darkness — the stumblings and quenchings suddenly of 
the lights, as the torch-bearer fell into a deep pool. We 
got home past midnight, and slept as we seldom sleep 
now. In the morning Adam, who had been long up, 
and had been up the " Hope " with his dog, when he 
saw we had wakened, told us there was four inches of 
snow, and we soon saw it was too true. So we had to 
go home without our cryptogamic prize. 

It turned out that Adam, who was an old man and 
frail, and had made some money, was going at Whit- 
sunday to leave, and live with his son in Glasgow. 
We had been admiring the beauty and gentleness and 
perfect shape of Wylie, the finest colley I ever saw, 
and said, " What are you going to do with Wylie ? " 
"'Deed," says he, "I hardly ken. I canna think o' 
sellin' her, though she's worth four pound, and she'll 
no like the toun." I said, " Would you let me have 
her ? " and Adam, looking at her fondly — she came 
up instantly to him, and made of him — said, " Ay, I 
wull, if ye'll be gude to her ; " and it was settled that 
when Adam left for Glasgow she should be sent into 
Albany Street by the carrier. 

She came, and was at once taken to all our hearts, 
even grandmother liked her ; and though she was often 
pensive, as if thinking of her master and her work on 



WYLIE. 95 

the hills, she made herself at home, and behaved in all 
respects like a lady. When out with me, if she saw sheep 
in the streets or road, she got quite excited, and helped 
the work, and was curiously useful, the being so making 
her wonderfully happy. And so her little life went on, 
never doing wrong, always blithe and kind and beautiful. 
But some months after she came, there was a mystery 
about her : every Tuesday evening she disappeared ; we 
tried to watch her, but in vain, she was always off by 
nine P. m., and was away all night, coming back next 
day wearied and all over mud, as if she had travelled far. 
She slept all next day. This went on for some months 
and we could make nothing of it. Poor dear creature, 
she looked at us wistfully when she came in, as if she 
would have told us if she could, and was especially fond, 
though tired. 

Well, one day I was walking across the Grassmarket, 
with Wylie at my heels, when two shepherds started, 
and looking at her, one said, " That's her ; that's the 
wonderful' wee bitch that naebody kens." I asked him 
what he meant, and he told me that for months past she 
had made her appearance by the first daylight at the 
" buchts " or sheep-pens in the cattle market, and worked 
incessantly, and to excellent purpose, in helping the 
shepherds to get their sheep and lambs in. The man 
said with a sort of transport, " She's a perfect meeracle ; 
flees about like a speerit, and never gangs wrang ; wears 
but never grups, and beats a' oor dowgs. She's a per- 
fect meeracle, and as soople as a maukin." Then he 
related how they all knew her, and said, " There's that 
wee fell yin ; we'll get them in noo." They tried to 
coax her to stop and be caught, but no, she was gentle, 
but off ; and for many a day that " wee fell yin " was 



96 OUR DOGS. 

spoken of by these rough fellows. She continued this 
amateur work till she died, which she did in peace. 

It is very touching the regard the south-country shep- 
herds have to their dogs. Professor Syme one day, 
many years ago, when living in Forres Street, was look- 
ing out of his window, and he saw a young shepherd 
striding down North Charlotte Street, as if making for 
his house ; it was midsummer. The man had his dog 
with him, and Mr. Syme noticed that he followed the 
dog, and not it him, though he contrived to steer for 
the house. He came, and was ushered into his room ; 
he wished advice about some ailment, and Mr. Syme 
saw that he had a bit of twine round the dog's neck, 
which he let drop out of his hand when he entered the 
room. He asked him the meaning of this, and he ex- 
plained that the magistrates had issued a mad-dog pro- 
clamation, commanding all dogs to be muzzled or led on 
pain of death. "And why do you go about as I saw 
you did before you came in to me ? " " Oh," said he, 
looking awkward, " I didna want Birkie to ken he was 
tied." Where will you find truer courtesy and finer 
feeling? He didn't want to hurt Birkie's feelings. 

Mr. Carruthers of Inverness told me a new story of 
these wise sheep dogs. A butcher from Inverness had 
purchased some sheep at Dingwall, and giving them in 
charge to his dog, left the road. The dog drove them 
on, till coming to a toll, the toll-wife stood before the 
drove, demanding her dues. The dog looked at her, 
and, jumping on her back, crossed his forelegs over her 
arms. The sheep passed through, and the dog took his 
place behind them, and went on his way. 



RAB. 97 



RAB, 



Of Rab I have little to say, indeed have little right 
to speak of him as one of " our dogs ; " but nobody 
will be sorry to hear anything of that noble fellow. 
Ailie, the day or two after the operation, when she was 
well and cheery, spoke about him, and said she would 
tell me fine stories when I came out, as I promised to 
do, to see her at Howgate. I asked her how James 
came to get him. She told me that one day she saw 
James coming down from Leadburn with the cart ; he 
had been away west, getting eggs and butter, cheese 
and hens for Edinburgh. She saw he was in some 
trouble, and on looking, there was what she thought a 
young calf being dragged, or, as she called it, " haurled," 
at the back of the cart. James was in front, and when 
he came up, very warm and very angry, she saw that 
there was a huge young dog tied to the cart, struggling 
and pulling back with all his might, and as she said 
" lookin' fearsom." James, who was out of breath and 
temper, being past his time, explained to Ailie, that this 
" muckle brute o' a whalp " had been worrying sheep, 
and terrifying everybody up at Sir George Montgom- 
ery's at Macbie Hill, and that Sir George had ordered 
him to be hanged, which, however, was sooner said than 
done, as " the thief" showed his intentions of dying hard. 
James came up just as Sir George had sent for his gun ; 
and as the dog had more than once shown a liking for 
him, he said he " wad gie him a chance ; " and so he 
tied him to his cart. Young Rab, fearing some mischief, 
had been entering a series of protests all the way, and 
nearly strangling himself to spite James and Jess, besides 
~7 



98 OUR DOGS. 

giving Jess more than usual to do. " I wish I had let 
Sir George pit that charge into him, the thrawn brute," 
said James. But Ailic had seen that in his foreleg 
there was a splinter of wood, which he had likely got 
when objecting to be hanged, and that he was miser- 
ably lame. So she got James to leave him with her, 
and go straight into Edinburgh. She gave him water, 
and by her woman's wit got his lame paw under a door, 
so that he couldn't suddenly get at her, then with a 
quick firm hand she plucked out the splinter, and put 
in an ample meal. She went in some time after, taking 
no notice of him, and he came limping up, and laid his 
great jaws in her lap ; from that moment they were 
" chief," as she said, James finding him mansuete and 
civil when he returned. 

She said it was Rab's habit to make his appearance 
exactly half an hour before his master, trotting in full of 
importance, as if to say, " He's all right, he'll be here." 
One morning James came without him. He had left 
Edinburgh very early, and in coming near Auchindinny, 
at a lonely part of the road, a man sprang out on him, 
and demanded his money. James, who was a cool hand, 
said, " Weel a weel, let me get it," and stepping back, he 
said to Rab, " Speak till him, my man." In an instant 
Rab was standing over him, threatening strangulation 
if he stirred. James pushed on, leaving Rab in charge ; 
he looked back, and saw that every attempt to rise was 
summarily put down. As he was telling Ailie the story, 
up came Rab with that great swing of his. It turned 
out that the robber was a Howgate lad, the worthless son 
of a neighbor, and Rab knowing him had let him cheaply 
off; the only thing, which was seen by a man from a field, 
was, that before letting him rise, he quenched (pro tern- 



WASP. 99 

pore) the fire of the eyes of the ruffian, by a familiar 
Gulliverian application of Hydraulics, which I need not 
further particularize. James, who did not know the way 
to tell an untruth, or embellish anything, told me this as 
what he called " a fact positeevely" 



WASP 

Was a dark brindled bull-terrier, as pure in blood as 
Cruiser or Wild Dayrell. She was brought by my 
brother from Otley, in the West Riding. She was very 
handsome, fierce, and gentle, with a small, compact, finely- 
shaped head, and a pair of wonderful eyes, — as full of 
fire and of softness as Grisi's ; indeed she had to my eye 
a curious look of that wonderful genius — at once wild 
and fond. It was a fine sight to see her on the prowl 
across Bowden Moor, now cantering with her nose down, 
now gathered up on the top of a dyke, and with erect 
ears, looking across the wild like a moss-trooper out on 
business, keen and fell. She could do everything it be- 
came a dog to do, from killing an otter or a polecat, to 
watching and playing with a baby, and was as docile to 
her master as she was surly to all else. She was not 
quarrelsome, but " being in," she would have pleased 
Polonius as much, as in being " ware of entrance." She 
was never beaten, and she killed on the spot several of 
the country bullies who came out upon her when follow- 
ing her master in his rounds. She generally sent them 
off howling with one snap, but if this was not enough, 
she made an end of it. 

But it was as a mother that she shone ; and to see the 
gypsy, Hagar-like creature nursing her occasional Ishmael 



100 OUR DOGS. 

— playing with him, and fondling him all over, teaching 
his teeth to war, and with her eye and the curl of her lip 
daring any one but her master to touch him, was like 
seeing Grisi watching her darling " Gennaro" who so 
little knew why and how much she loved him. 

Once when she had three pups, one of them died. 
For two days and nights she gave herself up to trying 
to bring it to life — licking it and turning it over and 
over, growling over it, and all but worrying it to awake 
it. She paid no attention to the living two, gave them 
no milk, flung them away with her teeth, and would 
have killed them, had they been allowed to remain with 
her. She was as one possessed, and neither ate, nor 
drank, nor slept, was heavy and miserable with her 
milk, and in such a state of excitement that no one 
could remove the dead pup. 

Early on the third day she was seen to take the pup 
in her mouth, and start across the fields towards the 
Tweed, striding like a race-horse — she plunged in, hold- 
ing up her burden, and at the middle of the stream drop- 
ped it and swam swiftly ashore ; then she stood and 
watched the little dark lump floating away, bobbing up 
and down with the current, and losing it at last far down, 
she made her way home, sought out the living two, de- 
voured them with her love, carried them one by one to 
her lair, and gave herself up wholly to nurse them ; you 
can fancy her mental and bodily happiness and relief 
when they were pulling away — and theirs. 

On one occasion my brother had lent her to a woman 
who lived in a lonely house, and whose husband was 
away for a time. She was a capital watch. One day 
an Italian with his organ came — first begging, then de- 
manding money — showing that he knew she was alone, 



JOCK. 101 

and that he meant to help himself, if she didn't. She 
threatened to " lowse the dowg ; " but as this was Greek 
to him, he pushed on. She had just time to set Wasp 
at him. It was very short work. She had him by the 
throat, pulled him and his organ down with a heavy 
crash, the organ giving a ludicrous sort of cry of musi- 
cal pain. Wasp thinking this was from some creature 
within, possibly a whittret, left the ruffian, and set to 
work tooth and nail on the box. Its master slunk off, 
and with mingled fury and thankfulness watched her dis- 
embowelling his only means of an honest living. The 
woman good-naturedly took her off, and signed to the 
miscreant to make himself and his remains scarce. 
This he did with a scowl ; and was found in the even- 
ing in the village, telling a series of lies to the watch- 
maker, and bribing him with a shilling to mend his pipes 
— " his kist o' whussels." 



JOCK 

Was insane from his birth ; at first an amabilis insa- 
nia, but ending in mischief and sudden death. He was 
an English terrier, fawn-colored ; his mother's name 
Vamp (Vampire), and his father's Demon. He was 
more properly daft than mad ; his courage, muscularity, 
and prodigious animal spirits making him insufferable, 
and never allowing one sane feature of himself any 
chance. No sooner was the street door open, than he 
was throttling the first dog passing, bringing upon him- 
self and me endless grief. Cats he tossed up into the 
air, and crushed their spines as they fell. Old ladies 
he upset by jumping over their heads ; old gentlemen 



102 OUR DOGS. 

by running between their legs. At home, he would 
think nothing of leaping through the tea-things, upset- 
ting the urn, cream, etc., and at dinner the same sort 
of thing. I believe if I could have found time to thrash 
him sufficiently, and let him be a year older, we might 
have kept him ; but having upset an Earl when the 
streets were muddy, I had to part with him. He was 
sent to a clergyman in the island of Westray, one of the 
Orkneys ; and though he had a wretched voyage, and 
was as sick as any dog, he signalized the first moment 
of his arrival at the manse, by strangling an ancient 
monkey, or " puggy," the pet of the minister, — who 
was a bachelor, — and the wonder of the island. Jock 
henceforward took to evil courses, extracting the kidneys 
of the best young rams, driving whole hirsels down 
steep places into the sea, till at last all the guns of 
Westray were pointed at him, as he stood at bay under 
a huge rock on the shore, and blew him into space. 
I always regret his end, and blame myself for sparing 
the rod. Of 



DUCHIE • 

I have already spoken ; her oddities were endless. We 
had and still have a dear friend, — " Cousin Susan " she 
is called by many who are not her cousins — a perfect 
lady, and, though hopelessly deaf, as gentle and con- 
tented as was ever Griselda with the full use of her 
ears ; quite as great a pet, in a word, of us all as Duchie 
was of ours. One day we found her mourning the death 
of a cat, a great playfellow of the Sputchard's, and her 
small Grace was with us when we were condoling with 



DUCHIE. 103 

her, and we saw that she looked very wistfully at Duchie. 
I wrote on the slate, " Would you like her ? " and she 
through her tears said, " You know that would never 
do." But it did do. We left Duchie that very night, 
and though she paid us frequent visits, she was Cousin 
Susan's for life. I fear indulgence dulled her moral 
sense. She was an immense happiness to her mistress, 
whose silent and lonely days she made glad with her 
oddity and mirth. And yet the small creature, old, 
toothless, and blind, domineered over her gentle friend 
— threatening her sometimes if she presumed to remove 
the small Fury from the inside of her own bed, into 
which it pleased her to creep. Indeed, I believe it is 
too true, though it was inferred only, that her mistress 
and friend spent a great part of a winter night in trying 
to coax her dear little ruffian out of the centre of the 
bed. One day the cook asked what she would have for 
dinner : " I would like a mutton chop, but then, you 
know, Duchie likes minced veal better ! " The faithful 
and happy little creature died at a great age, of natural 
decay. 

But time would fail me, and I fear patience would fail 
you, my reader, were I to tell you of Crab, of John 
Pym, of Puck, and of the rest. Crab, the Mugger's 
dog, grave, with deep-set, melancholy eyes, as of a noble- 
man (say the Master of Ravenswood) in disguise, large 
visaged, shaggy, indomitable, come of the pure Piper 
Allan's breed. This Piper Allan, you must know, lived 
some two hundred years ago in Cocquet Water, piping 
like Homer, from place to place, and famous not less for 
his dog than for his music, his news and his songs. The 
Earl of Northumberland, of his day, offered the piper a 



104 OUR DOGS. 

small farm for his dog, but after deliberating for a day, 
Allan said, " Na, na, ma Lord, keep yir ferum ; what 
wud a piper do wi' a ferum ? " From this clog de- 
scended Davidson of Hyndlee's breed, the original Dan- 
die-Dinmont, and Crab could count his kin up to him. 
He had a great look of the Right Honorable Edward 
Ellice, and had much of his energy and wecht ; had 
there been a dog House of Commons, Crab would have 
spoken as seldom, and been as great a power in the 
house, as the formidable and faithful time-out-of-mind 
member for Coventry. 

John Pym was a smaller dog than Crab, of more 
fashionable blood, being a son of Mr. Somner's famous 
Shem, whose father and brother are said to have been 
found dead in a drain into which the hounds had run a 
fox. It had three entrances : the father was put in at 
one hole, the son at another, and speedily the fox bolted 
out at the third, but no appearance of the little terriers, 
and on digging, they were found dead, locked in each 
other's jaws ; they had met, and it being dark, and there 
being no time for explanations, they had throttled each 
other. John was made of the same sort of stuff, and 
was as combative and victorious as his great namesake, 
and not unlike him in some of his not so creditable 
qualities. He must, I think, have been related to a 
certain dog to whom " life was full o' sairiousness," but 
in John's case the same cause produced an opposite 
effect. John was gay and light-hearted, even when 
there was not "enuff of fechtin," which, however, sel- 
dom happened, there being a market every week in 
Melrose, and John appearing most punctually at the 
cross to challenge all comers, and being short legged, 
he inveigled every dog into an engagement by first at- 



DICK. 105 

tacking him, and then falling down on his back, in which 
posture he latterly fought and won all his battles. 

What can I say of Puck * — the thoroughbred — the 
simple-hearted — the purloiner of eggs warm from the 
hen — the fiutterer of all manner of Volscians — the 
bandy-legged, dear, old, dilapidated buffer? I got him 
from my brother, and only parted with him because 
William's stock was gone. He had to the end of life 
a simplicity which was quite touching. One summer 
day — a dog-day — when all dogs found straying were 
hauled away to the police-office, and killed off in twen- 
ties with strychnine, I met Puck trotting along Princes 
Street with a policeman, a rope round his neck, he look- 
ing up in the fatal, official, but kindly countenance in the 
most artless and cheerful manner, wagging his tail and 
trotting along. In ten minutes he would have been in 
the next world ; for I am one of those who believe dogs 
have a next world, and why not ? Puck ended his days 
as the best dog in Roxburghshire. Placide quiescas ! 



DICK 

Still lives, and long may he live ! As he was never 
born, possibly he may never die ; be it so, he will miss 
us when we are gone. I could say much of him, but 
agree with the lively and admirable Dr. Jortin, when, in 

1 In The Dog, by Stonehenge, an excellent book, there is a wood- 
cut of Puck, and " Dr. Wm. Brown's celebrated dog John Pym " is 
mentioned. Their pedigrees are given — here is Puck's, which shows 
his " strain " is of the pure azure blood — " Got by John Pym, out of 
Tib; bred by Purves of Leaderfoot; sire, Old Dandie, the famous dog 
of old John Stoddart of Selkirk — dam, Whin." How Homeric all 
this sounds ! I cannot help quoting what follows — " Sometimes a 



106 OUR DOGS. 

his dedication of his Remarks on Ecclesiastical History 
to the then (1752) Archbishop of Canterbury, he ex- 
cuses himself for not following the modern custom of 
praising his Patron, by reminding his Grace " that it 
was a custom amongst the ancients, not to sacrifice to 
heroes till after sunset" I defer my sacrifice till Dick's 
sun is set. 

I think every family should have a dog ; it is like hav- 
ing a perpetual baby ; it is the plaything and crony of 
the whole house. It keeps them all young. All unite 
upon Dick. And then he tells no tales, betrays no 
secrets, never sulks, asks no troublesome questions, never 
gets into debt, never coming down late for breakfast, or 
coming in through his Chubb too early to bed — is always 
ready for a bit of fun, lies in wait for it, and you may, 
if choleric, to your relief, kick him instead of some one 
else, who would not take it so meekly, and, moreover, 
would certainly not, as he does, ask your pardon for be- 
ing kicked. 

Never put a collar on your dog — it only gets him 
stolen ; give him only one meal a day, and let that, as 
Dame Dorothy, Sir Thomas Browne's wife, would say, 
be "rayther under." Wash him once a week, and al- 
ways wash the soap out ; and let him be carefully 
combed and brushed twice a week. 

By the bye, I was wrong in saying that it was Burns 
who said Man is the God of the Dog — he got it from 
Bacon's Essay on Atheism. 

Dandie pup of a good strain may appear not to be game at an early 
age ; but he should not be parted with on this account, because many 
of them do not show their courage till nearly two years old, and then 
nothing can beat them; this apparent softness arising, as I suspect, 
from kindness of heart " — a suspicion, my dear " Stonehenge," which 
is true, and shows your own " kindness of heart," as well as sense. 



QUEEN MARTS CHILD- GARDEN. 



QUEEN MARY'S CHILD-GARDEN. 




F any one wants a pleasure that is sure to 
please, one over which he needn't growl 
rv^ the sardonic beatitude of the great Dean, let 
^•^V him, when the Mercury is at " Fair," take 
the nine a.m. train to the North and a return-ticket 
for Callander, and when he arrives at Stirling, let 
him ask the most obliging and knowing of station- 
masters to telegraph to " the Dreadnought " for a car- 
riage to be in waiting. When passing Dunblane Cathe- 
dral, let him resolve to write to the Scotsman, advis- 
ing the removal of a couple of shabby trees which 
obstruct the view of that beautiful triple end window 
which Mr. Ruskin and everybody else admires, and by 
the time he has written this letter in his mind, and 
turned the sentences to it, he will find himself at Cal- 
lander and the carriage all ready. Giving the order for 
the Port of Monteith, he will rattle through this hard- 
featured, and to our eye comfortless village, lying ugly 
amid so much grandeur and beauty, and let him stop 
on the crown of the bridge, and fill his eyes with the 
perfection of the view up the Pass of Leny — the Teith 
lying diffuse and asleep, as if its heart were in the High- 
lands and it were loath to go, the noble Ben Ledi im- 
aged in its broad stream. Then let him make his way 
across a bit of pleasant moorland — flushed with maiden- 



110 QUEEN MARY'S CHILD-GARDEN. 

hair and white with cotton grass, and fragrant with the 
Orchis co?iopsia, well deserving its epithet odoratissima. 

He will see from the turn of the hill-side the Blair of 
Drummond waving with corn and shadowed with rich 
woods, where eighty years ago there was a black peat- 
moss ; and far off, on the horizon, Damyat and the 
Touch Fells ; and at his side the little loch of Ruskie, 
in which he may see five Highland cattle, three tawny 
brown and two brindled, standing in the still water — 
themselves as still, all except their switching tails and 
winking ears — the perfect images of quiet enjoyment. 
By this time he will have come in sight of the Lake of 
Monteith, set in its woods, with its magical shadows and 
soft gleams. There is a loveliness, a gentleness and 
peace about it more like "lone St. Mary's Lake/' or 
Derw r ent Water, than of any of its sister lochs. It is 
lovely rather than beautiful, and is a sort of gentle prel- 
ude, in the minor key, to the coming glories and intenser 
charms of Loch Ard and the true Highlands beyond. 

You are now at the Port, and have passed the se- 
cluded and cheerful manse, and the parish kirk with its 
graves, close to the lake, and the proud aisle of the Gra- 
hams of Gartmore washed by its waves. Across the 
road is the modest little inn, a Fisher's Tryst. On the 
unruffled w T ater lie several islets, plump with rich foli- 
age, brooding like great birds of calm. You somehow 
think of them as on, not in the lake, or like clouds lying 
in a nether sky — " like ships waiting for the wind." 
You get a coble, and a yauld old Celt, its master, and 
are rowed across to Inchmahome, the Isle of Rest. Here 
you find on landing huge Spanish chestnuts, one lying 
dead, others standing stark and peeled, like gigantic ant- 
lers, and others flourishing in their viridis senectus, and 



QUEEN MARY'S CHILD-GARDEN. Ill 

in a thicket of wood you see the remains of a monastery 
of great beauty, the design and workmanship exquisite. 
You wander through the ruins, overgrown with ferns 
and Spanish filberts, and old fruit-trees, and at the cor- 
ner of the old monkish garden you come upon one of 
the strangest and most touching sights you ever saw — 
an oval space of about 18 feet by 12, with the remains 
of a double row of boxwood all round, the plants of box 
being about fourteen feet high, and eight or nine inches 
in diameter, healthy, but plainly of great age. 

What is this? it is called in the guide-books Queen 
Mary's Bower ; but besides its being plainly not in the 
least a bower, what could the little Queen, then five 
years old, and " fancy free," do with a bower ? It is 
plainly, as was, we believe, first suggested by our keen- 
sighted and diagnostic Professor of Clinical Surgery, 1 
the Child- Queen's Garden, with her little walk, and its 
rows of boxwood, left to themselves for three hundred 
years. Yes, without doubt, " here is that first garden 
of her simpleness." Fancy the little, lovely royal child, 
with her four Marys, her playfellows, her child maids 
of honor, with their little hands and feet, and their in- 
nocent and happy eyes, pattering about that garden all 
that time ago, laughing, and running, and gardening as 
only children do and can. As is well known, Mary was 
placed by her mother in this Isle of Rest before sailing 
from the Clyde for France. There is something " that 
tirls the heartstrings a' to the life " in standing and look- 

1 The same seeing eye and understanding mind, when they were 
eighteen years of age, discovered and published the Solvent of Caout- 
chouc, for which a patent was taken out afterwards by the famous 
Mackintosh. If the young discoverer had secured the patent, he might 
have made a fortune as large as his present reputation — I don't sup- 
pose he much regrets that he didn't. 



112 QUEEN MARY'S CHILD-GARDEN. 

ing on this unmistakable living relic of that strange 
and pathetic old time. Were we Mr. Tennyson, we 
would write an Idyll of that child Queen, in that garden 
of hers, eating her bread and honey — getting her teach- 
ing from the holy men, the monks of old, and running 
off in wild mirth to her garden and her flowers, all un- 
conscious of the black, lowering thunder-cloud on Ben 
Lomond's shoulder. 

" Oh, blessed vision! happy child! 
Thou art so exquisitely wild ; 
I think of thee with many fears 
Of what may be thy lot in future years. 
I thought of times when Pain might be thy guest, 
Lord of thy house and hospitality. 
And Grief, uneasy lover ! never rest 
But when she sat within the touch of thee. 
"What hast thou to do with sorrow, 
Or the injuries of to-morrow? " 

You have ample time to linger there amid 

" The gleams, the shadows, and the peace profound," 

and get your mind informed with quietness and beauty, 
and fed with thoughts of other years, and of her whose 
story, like Helen of Troy's, will continue to move the 
hearts of men as long as the gray hills stand round 
about that gentle lake, and are mirrored at evening in 
its depths. You may do and enjoy all this, and be in 
Princes Street by nine p. m ; and we wish we were as 
sure of many things as of your saying, " Yes, this is a 
pleasure that has pleased, and will please again ; this 
was something expected which did not disappoint." 



QUEEN MARY'S CHILD-GARDEN. 113 

There is another garden of Queen Mary's, which may 
still be seen, and which has been left to itself like that in 
the Isle of Rest. It is in the grounds at Chatsworth, 
and is moated, walled round, and raised about fifteen 
feet above the park. Here the Queen, when a prisoner 
under the charge of " Old Bess of Hardwake," was al- 
lowed to walk without any guard. How different the 
two ! and how different she who took her pleasure in 
them ! 

Lines written on the steps of a small moated garden at Chatsworth, 
called 

" Queen Mary's Bower. 

" The moated bower is wild and drear, 
And sad the dark yew's shade; 
The flowers which bloom in silence here, 
In silence also fade. 

" The woodbine and the light wild rose 
Float o'er the broken wall; 
And here the mournful nightshade blows, 
To note the garden's fall. 

" Where once a princess wept her woes, 
The bird of night complains ; 
And sighing trees the tale disclose 
They learnt from Mary's strains. 

" A. H." 
8 



PRESENCE OF MIND, AND HAPPY GUESSING. 



u Depend upon it a lucky guess is never merely luck — there is always 
some talent in it." — Miss Austex, in Emma. 




PRESENCE OF MIND, AND HAPPY 
GUESSING. 

R. CHALMERS used to say that in the 
dynamics of human affairs, two qualities 
were essential to greatness — Power and 
Promptitude. One man might have both, 
another power without promptitude, another prompti- 
tude without power. We must all feel the common 
sense of this, and can readily see how it applies to 
a general in the field, to a pilot in a storm, to a 
sportsman, to a fencer, to a debater. It is the same 
with an operating surgeon at all times, and may be at 
any time with the practitioner of the art of healing. 
He must be ready for what are called emergencies — 
cases which rise up at your feet, and must be dealt 
with on the instant, — he must have power and promp- 
titude. 

It is a curious condition of mind that this requires : 
it is like sleeping with your pistol under your pillow, 
and it on full cock ; a moment lost and all may be lost. 
There is the very nick of time. This is what we mean 
by presence of mind ; by a man having such a subject 
at his finger ends ; that part of the mind lying nearest 
the outer world, and having to act on it through the 
bodily organs, through the will — the outposts must be 
always awake. It is of course, so to speak, only a por- 



118 PRESENCE OF MIND, AND HAPPY GUESSING. 

tion of the mind that is thus needed and thus available ; 
if the whole mind were forever at the advanced posts, 
it would soon lose itself in this endeavor to keep it. 
Now, though the thing needed to be done may be simple 
enough, what goes to the doing of it, and to the being at 
once ready and able to do it, involves much : the wedge 
would not be a wedge, or do a wedge's work, without 
the width behind as well as the edge in front. Your 
men of promptitude without genius or power, including 
knowledge and will, are those who present the wedge the 
wrong way. Thus your extremely prompt people are 
often doing the wrong thing, which is almost always 
worse than nothing. Our vague friend who bit " Yar- 
row's " tail instead of " the Chicken's/' was full of 
promptitude ; as was also that other man, probably a 
relative, who barred the door with a boiled carrot ; each 
knew what was needed — the biting the tail, the barring 
the door ; both erred as to the means — the one by want 
of presence of mind, the other by lack of mind itself. 
We must have just enough of the right knowledge and 
no more ; we must have the habit of using this ; we 
must have self-reliance, and the consentaneousness of the 
entire mind ; and what our hand finds to do, we must do 
with our might as well as with it. Therefore it is that 
this master act of the man, under some sudden and great 
unexpected crisis, is in a great measure performed un- 
consciously as to its mental means. The man is so totus 
in illo, that there is no bit of the mind left to watch and 
record the acts of the rest ; therefore men, when they 
have done some signal feat of presence of mind, if asked 
how they did it, generally don't very well know — they 
just did it ; it was, in fact, done and then thought of, 
not thought of and then done, in which case it would 



PRESENCE OF MIND, AND HAPPY GUESSING. 119 

likely never have been done. Not that the act was un- 
caused by mind ; it is one of the highest powers of 
mind thus to act ; but it is done, if I may use the phrase, 
by an acquired instinct. You will find all this in that 
wonderful old Greek who was Alexander the Great's 
and the old world's schoolmaster, and ours if we were 
wise, — whose truthfulness and clear insight one won- 
ders at the longer he lives. He seems to have seen 
the human mind as a bird or an engineer does the earth 
— he knew the plan of it. We now-a-days see it as 
one sees a country, athwart and in perspective, and from 
the side ; he saw it from above and from below. There 
are therefore no shadows, no foreshortenings, no clear- 
obscure, indeed no disturbing medium ; it is as if he 
examined everything in vacuo. I refer my readers to 
what he says on 'Ay^tVota and 'Eva-royta. 1 

1 As I am now, to my sorrow and shame, too much of a mediate 
Grecian, I give a Balliol friend's note on these two words: — "What 
you have called 'presence of mind' and ' happy guessing ' may, I 
think, be identified respectively with Aristotle's ayxivoca and evgtox'lcl. 
The latter of these, eioroxia, Aristotle mentions incidentally when 
treating of evj3ovMa, or good deliberation. Eth. Nic. bk. vi. ch. 9. 
Good deliberation, he says, is not evoroxia, for the former is a slow 
process, whereas the latter is not guided by reason, and is rapid. In 
the same passage he tells us that uyxivoia is a sort of evoToxia, But 
he speaks of ayx'tvoia more fully in Ana. Post. i. 34 : — l ' kyxivota 
is a sort of happy guessing at the intermediate, when there is not time 
for consideration : as when a man, seeing that the bright side of the 
moon is always turned towards the sun, comprehends that her light is 
borrowed from the sun ; or concludes, from seeing one conversing with 
a capitalist that he wants to borrow money ; or infers that people are 
friends from the fact of their having common enemies.' " And then he 
goes on to make these simple observations confused and perplexing by 
reducing them to his logical formula. 

"The derivation of the words will confirm this view. Evaroxta 
is a hitting the mark successfully, a reaching to the end, the rapid and, 
as it were, intuitive perception of the truth. This is what Whewell 



120 PRESENCE OF MIND, AND HAPPY GUESSING. 

My object in what I have now written and am going 
to write, is to impress upon medical students the value 
of power and promptitude in combination, for their pro- 
fessional purposes ; the uses to them of nearness of the 
N0G9, and of happy guessing ; and how you may see 
the sense, and neatness, and pith of that excellent 
thinker, as well as best of all story-tellers, Miss Aus- 
ten, when she says in Emma, " Depend upon it, a lucky 
guess is never merely luck, there is always some talent 
in it." Talent here denoting intelligence and will in 
action. In all sciences except those called exact, this 
happy guessing plays a large part, and in none more 
than in medicine, which is truly a tentative art, founded 

means by saying, ' all induction is a happy conjecture.' But when 
Aristotle says that this faculty is not guided by reason (avev re yap 
?ioyov), he does not mean to imply that it grows up altogether inde- 
pendent of reason, any more than Whewell means to say that all the 
discoveries in the inductive sciences have been made by men taking 
'shots' at them, as boys at school do at hard passages in their Latin 
lessons. On the contrary, no faculty is so absolutely the child of reason 
as this faculty of happy guessing It only attains to perfection after 
the reason has been long and painfully trained in the sphere in which 
the guesses are to be made. What Aristotle does mean is, that when it 
has attained perfection, we are not conscious of the share which reason 
has in its operation — it is so rapid that by no analysis can we detect 
the presence of reason in its action. Sir Isaac Newton seeing the 
apple fall, and thence ' guessing ' at the law of gravitation, is a good 
instance of evaroxla. 

" ' ' k.yx' LV0La , on the other hand, is a nearness of mind; not a reaching 
to the end, but an apprehension of the best means; not a perception 
of the truth, but a perception of how the truth is to be supported. It 
is sometimes translated ' sagacity,' but readiness or presence of mind 
is better, as sagacity rather involves the idea of consideration. In 
matters purely intellectual it is ready wit. It is a sort of shorter or 
more limited eixjro^a. It is more of a natural gift than evotox'lcl, 
because the latter is a far higher and nobler faculty, and therefore 
more dependent for its perfection on cultivation, as all our highest 
faculties are. Eixrro^a is more akin to genius, ayxlvoca to practical 
common sense." 



PRESENCE OF MIND, AND HAPPY GUESSING. 121 

upon likelihood, and is therefore what we call contingent. 
Instead of this view of the healing art discouraging us 
from making our ultimate principles as precise, as we 
should make our observations, it should urge us the 
more to this ; for, depend upon it, that guess as we 
may often have to do, he will guess best, most happily 
for himself and his patient, who has the greatest amount 
of true knowledge, and the most serviceable amount of 
what we may call mental cash, ready money, and ready 
weapons. 

We must not only have wisdom, which is knowledge 
assimilated and made our own, but we must, as the 
Lancashire men say and do, have wit to use it. We 
may carry a nugget of gold in our pocket, or a £100 
bank-note, but unless we can get it changed, it is of little 
use, and we must moreover have the coin of the coun- 
try we are in. This want of presence of mind, and 
having your wits about you, is as fatal to a surgeon as 
to a general. 

That wise little man, Dr. Henry Marshall, little in 
body but not little in mind, in brain, and in worth, used 
to give an instance of this. A young, well-educated 
surgeon, attached to a regiment quartered at Mussel- 
burgh, went out professionally with two officers who 
were in search of " satisfaction." One fell shot in the 
thigh, and in half an hour after he was found dead, the 
surgeon kneeling pale and grim over him, with his two 
thumbs sunk in his thigh below the wound, the grass 
steeped in blood. If he had put them two inches higher, 
or extemporized a tourniquet with his sash and the pis- 
tol's ramrod and a stone, he might have saved his friend's 
life and his own — for he shot himself that night. 

Here is another. Robbie Watson, whom I now see 



122 PRESENCE OF MIND, AND HAPPY GUESSING. 

walking mildly about the streets — having taken to coal 

— was driver of the Dumfries coach by Biggar. One 
day he had changed horses, and was starting down a 
steep hill, with an acute turn at the foot, when he found 
his wheelers, two new horses, utterly ignorant of back- 
ing. They got furious, and we outside got alarmed. 
Robbie made an attempt to pull up, and then with an 
odd smile took his whip, gathered up his reins, and 
lashed the entire four into a gallop. If we had not 
seen his face we would have thought him a maniac ; 
he kept them well together, and shot down like an 
arrow, as far as we could see to certain destruction. 
Eight in front at the turn was a stout gate into a field, 
shut ; he drove them straight at that, and through we 
went, the gate broken into shivers, and we finding our- 
selves safe, and the very horses enjoying the joke. I 
remember we emptied our pockets into Robbie's hat, 
which he had taken off to wipe his head. Now, in a 
few seconds all this must have passed through his head 

— " that horse is not a wheeler, nor that one either ; 
we'll come to mischief; there's the gate; yes, I'll do 
it." And he did it ; but then he had to do it with his 
might ; he had to make it impossible for his four horses 
to do anything but toss the gate before them. 

Here is another case. Dr. Reid of Peebles, long 
famous in the end of last and beginning of this century, 
as the Doctor of Tweeddale ; a man of great force of 
character, and a true Philip, a lover of horses, saw one 
Fair day a black horse, entire, thoroughbred. The groom 
asked a low price, and would answer no questions. At 
the close of the fair the doctor bought him, amid the 
derision of his friends. Next morning he rode him up 
Tweed, came home after a long round, and had never 



PRESENCE OF MIND, AND HAPPY GUESSING. 123 

been better carried. This went on for some weeks ; the 
fine creature was without a fault. One Sunday morning, 
he was posting up by Neidpath at a great pace, the coun- 
try people trooping into the town to church. Opposite 
the fine old castle, the thorough-bred stood stock still, and 
it needed all the doctor's horsemanship to counteract the 
law of projectiles ; he did, and sat still, and not only 
gave no sign of urging the horse, but rather intimated 
that it was his particular desire that he should stop. He 
sat there a full hour, his friends making an excellent joke 
of it, and he declining, of course, all interference. At 
the end of the hour, the Black Duke, as he was called, 
turned one ear forward, then another, looked aside, shook 
himself, and moved on, his master intimating that this 
was exactly what he wished ; and from that day till his 
death, some fifteen years after, never did these two 
friends allude to this little circumstance, and it was 
never repeated ; though it turned out that he had killed 
his two men previously. The doctor must have, when 
he got him, said to himself, " if he is not stolen there is 
a reason for his paltry price," and he would go over all 
the possibilities. So that when he stood still, he would 
say, " Ah, this is it ; " but then he saw this at once, and 
lost no time, and did nothing. Had he given the horse 
one dig with his spurs, or one cut with his whip, or an 
impatient jerk with his bit, the case would have failed. 
When a colt it had been brutally used, and being nerv- 
ous, it lost its judgment, poor thing, and lost its presence 
of mind. 

One more instance of nearness of the Nous. A lady 
was in front of her lawn with her children, when a mad 
dog made his appearance, pursued by the peasants. 
What did she do ? What would you have done ? Shut 



124 PRESENCE OF MIND, AND HAPPY GUESSING. 

your eyes and think. She went straight to the dog, re- 
ceived its head in her thick stuff gown, between her 
knees, and muffling it up, held it with all her might till 
the men came up. No one was hurt. Of course, she 
fainted after it was all right. 

We all know (but why should we not know again ?) the 
story of the Grecian mother who saw her child sporting 
on the edge of the bridge. She knew that a cry would 
startle it over into the raging stream — she came gently 
near, and opening her bosom allured the little scapegrace. 

I once saw a great surgeon, after settling a particular 
procedure as to a life-and-death operation, as a general 
settles his order of battle. He began his work, and at 
the second cut altered the entire conduct of the opera- 
tion. No one not in the secret could have told this : 
not a moment's pause, not a quiver of the face, not a 
look of doubt. This is the same master power in man, 
which makes the difference between Sir John Moore and 
Sir John Cope. 

Mrs. Major Robertson, a woman of slight make, great 
beauty, and remarkable energy, courage, and sense (she 
told me the story herself), on going up to her bedroom 
at night — there being no one in the house but a servant 
girl, in the ground floor — saw a portion of a man's foot 
projecting from under the bed. She gave no cry of 
alarm, but shut the door as usual, set down her candle, 
and began as if to undress, when she said aloud to her- 
self, with an impatient tone and gesture, " I've forgotten 
that key again, I declare ; " and leaving the candle burn- 
ing, and the door open, she went down-stairs, got the 
watchman, and secured the proprietor of the foot, which 
had not moved an inch. How many women or men 
could have done, or rather been all this ! 



MY FATHERS MEMOIR. 



A LETTER TO JOHN CAIRNS, D. D. 



" / praised the dead which are already dead, more than the living 
which are yet alive.'' 1 




MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 




LETTER TO JOHN CAIRNS, D. D. 

23 Rutland Steet, lbth August, 1860. 
Y dear Friend, — When, at the urgent 
request of his trustees and family, and in 
| accordance with what I believe was his own 
wish, you undertook my father's Memoir, it 
was in a measure on the understanding that I would 
furnish you with some domestic and personal details. 
This I hoped to have done but was unable. 

Though convinced more than ever how little my hand 
is needed, I will now endeavor to fulfil my promise. 
Before doing so, however, you must permit me to ex- 
press our deep gratitude to you for this crowning proof 
of your regard for him 

" Without whose life we had not been; " 

to whom for many years you habitually wrote as " My 
father,'' and one of whose best blessings, when he was 
" such an one as Paul the aged," was to know that you 
were to him " mine own son in the gospel." 

With regard to the manner in which you have done 
this last kindness to the dead, I can say nothing more 
expressive of our feelings, and, I am sure, nothing more 
gratifying to you, than that the record you have given 
of my father's life, and of the series of great public ques- 



128 MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 

tions in which he took part, is done in the way which 
would have been most pleasing to himself — that which, 
with his passionate love of truth and liberty, his relish 
for concentrated, just thought and expression, and his 
love of being loved, he would have most desired, in any 
one speaking of him after he was gone. He would, I 
doubt not, say, as one said to a great painter, on looking 
at his portrait, " It is certainly like, but it is much bet- 
ter looking ; " and you might well reply as did the paint- 
er, "It is the truth, told lovingly" — and all the more 
true that it is so told. You have, indeed, been enabled 
to speak the truth, or as the Greek has it, aXrjOeveiv 
Iv ayd-Trr] — to truth it in love. 

I have over and over again sat down to try and do 
what I promised and wished — to give some faint ex- 
pression of my father's life ; not of what he did or said 
or wrote — not even of what he was as a man of God 
and a public teacher ; but what he was in his essen- 
tial nature — what he would have been had he been 
anything else than what he was, or had lived a thou- 
sand years ago. 

Sometimes I have this so vividly in my mind that I 
think I have only to sit down and write it off, and do it 
to the quick. " The idea of his life," what he was as a 
whole, what was his self, all his days, would, — to go on 
with words which not time or custom can ever wither 
or make stale, — 

" Sweetly creep 
Into my study of imagination ; 
And every lovely organ of his life 
Would come apparelled in more precious habit — 
More moving delicate, and full of life, 
Into the eye and prospect of my soul, 
Than when he lived indeed," 



MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 129 

as if the sacredness of death and the bloom of eternity 
were on it ; or as you may have seen in an untroubled 
lake, the heaven reflected with its clouds, brighter, purer, 
more exquisite than itself; but when you try to put this 
into words, to detain yourself over it, it is by this very 
act disturbed, broken and bedimmed, and soon vanishes 
away, as would the imaged heavens in the lake, if a 
pebble were cast into it, or a breath of wind stirred its 
face. The very anxiety to transfer it, as it looked out 
of the clear darkness of the past, makes the image grow 
dim and disappear. 

Every one whose thoughts are not seldom with the 
dead, must have felt both these conditions ; how, in cer- 
tain passive, tranquil states, there comes up into the 
darkened chamber of the mind, its " chamber of ima- 
gery " — uncalled, as if it blossomed out of space, exact, 
absolute, consummate, vivid, speaking, not darkly as in 
a glass, but face to face, and " moving delicate " — this 
" idea of his life ; " and then how an effort to prolong 
and perpetuate and record all this, troubles the vision 
and kills it ! It is as if one should try to paint in a 
mirror the reflection of a dear and unseen face ; the 
coarse, uncertain passionate handling and color, inef- 
fectual and hopeless, shut out the very thing itself. 

I will therefore give this up as in vain, and try by 
some fragmentary sketches, scenes, and anecdotes, to let 
you know in some measure what manner of man my 
father was. Anecdotes, if true and alive, are always 
valuable ; the man in the concrete, the totus quis comes 
out in them ; and I know you too well to think that you 
will consider as trivial or out of place anything in which 
his real nature displayed itself, and your own sense of 
humor as a master and central power of the human soul, 
9 



130 MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 

playing about the very essence of the man, will do more 
than forgive anything of this kind which may crop out 
here and there, like the smile of wild-flowers in grass, 
or by the wayside. 

My first recollection of my father, my first impression, 
not only of his character, but of his eyes and face and 
presence, strange as it may seem, dates from my fifth 
year. Doubtless I had looked at him often enough be- 
fore that, and had my own childish thoughts about him ; 
but this was the time when I got my fixed, compact idea 
of him, and the first look of him which I felt could never 
be forgotten. I saw him, as it were, by a flash of light- 
ning, sudden and complete. A child begins by seeing 
bits of everything ; it knows in part — here a little, there 
a little ; it makes up its wholes out of its own littles, and 
is long of reaching the fulness of a whole ; and in this 
we are children all our lives in much. Children are 
long of seeing, or at least of looking at what is above 
them ; they like the ground, and its flowers and stones, 
its " red sodgers " and lady-birds, and all its queer 
things ; their world is about three feet high, and they 
are more often stooping than gazing up. I know I was 
past ten before I saw, or cared to see, the ceilings of the 
rooms in the manse at Biggar. 

On the morning of the 28th May, 1816, my eldest 
sister Janet and I were sleeping in the kitchen-bed with 
Tibbie Meek, 1 our only servant. We were all three 

1 A year ago, I found an elderly countrywoman, a widow, waiting 
for me. Rising up, she said, "D'ye mind me?" I looked at her, 
but could get nothing from her face; but the voice remained in my 
ear, as if coming from "the fields of sleep," and I said by a sort of 
instinct, "Tibbie Meek! " I had not seen her or heard her voice for 
more than forty years. She had come to get some medical advice. 
Voices are often like the smells of flowers and leaves, the tastes of 



MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 131 

awakened by a cry of pain — sharp, insufferable, as if 
one were stung. Years after we two confided to each 
other, sitting by the burnside, that we thought that 
u great cry " which arose at midnight in Egypt must 
have been like it. We all knew whose voice it was, 
and, in our night-clothes, we ran into the passage, and 
into the little parlor to the left hand, in which was a 
closet-bed. We found my father standing before us, 
erect, his hands clenched in his black hair, his eyes full 
of misery and amazement, his face white as that of the 
dead. He frightened us. He saw this, or else his in- 
tense will had mastered his agony, for, taking his hands 
from his head, he said, slowly and gently, " Let us give 
thanks," and turned to a little sofa in the room ; there 
lay our mother, dead. 1 She had long been ailing. I 
remember her sitting in a shawl, — an Indian one with 
little dark green spots on a light ground, — and watch- 
ing her growing pale with what I afterwards knew must 
have been strong pain. She had, being feverish, slipped 
out of bed, and " grandmother," her mother, seeing her 
" change come," had called my father, and they two saw 
her open her blue, kind, and true eyes, " comfortable " 
to us all " as the day " — I remember them better than 
those of any one I saw yesterday — and, with one faint 
look of recognition to him, close them till the time of 
the restitution of all things. 

" She had another morn than ours." 

Then were seen in full action his keen, passionate 

•wild fruits — they touch and awaken memory in a strange way. 
"Tibbie" is now living at Thankerton. 

1 This sofa, which was henceforward sacred in the house, he had al- 
ways beside him. He used to tell us he set her down upon it when 
he brought her home to the manse. 



132 MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 

nature, his sense of mental pain, and his supreme will, 
instant and unsparing, making himself and his terrified 
household give thanks in the midst of such a desolation, 
— and for it. Her warfare was accomplished, her in- 
iquities were pardoned : she had already received from 
her Lord's hand double for all her sins ; this was his 
supreme and over-mastering thought, and he gave it 
utterance. 

No man was happier in his wives. My mother was 
modest, calm, thrifty, reasonable, tender, happy-hearted. 
She was his student-love, and is even now remembered 
in that pastoral region, for " her sweet gentleness and 
wife-like government." Her death and his sorrow and 
loss, settled down deep into the heart of the countryside. 
He was so young and bright, so full of fire, so unlike 
any one else, so devoted to his work, so chivalrous in his 
look and manner, so fearless, and yet so sensitive and 
self-contained. She was so wise, good and gentle, gra- 
cious and frank. 

His subtlety of affection, and his almost cruel self- 
command, were shown on the day of the funeral. It 
was to Symington, four miles off, — a quiet little church- 
yard, lying in the shadow of Tinto ; a place where she 
herself had wished to be laid. The funeral was chiefly 
on horseback. We, the family, were in coaches. I had 
been since the death in a sort of stupid musing and 
wonder, not making out what it all meant. I knew my 
mother was said to be dead. I saw she was still, and 
laid out, and then shut up, and didn't move ; but I did 
not know that when she was carried out in that long 
black box, and we all went with her, she alone was 
never to return. 

When we got to the village all the people were at their 






MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 133 

doors. One woman, the blacksmith Thomas Spence's 
wife, had a nursing baby in her arms, and he leapt up 
and crowed with joy at the strange sight, the crowding 
horsemen, the coaches, and the nodding plumes of the 
hearse. This was my brother William, then nine months 
old, and Margaret Spence was his foster-mother. Those 
with me were overcome at this sight ; he of all the world 
whose, in some ways, was the greatest loss, the least con- 
scious, turning it to his own childish glee. 

We got to the churchyard and stood round the open 
grave. My dear old grandfather was asked by my father 
to pray ; he did. I don't remember his words ; I be- 
lieve he, through his tears and sobs, repeated the Divine 
words, "All flesh is grass, and all the glory of man as 
the flower of the grass ; the grass withereth, and the 
flower thereof falleth away, but the word of the Lord 
endureth forever ; " adding, in his homely and pathetic 
way, that the flower would again bloom, never again to 
fade ; that what was now sown in dishonor and weakness, 
would be raised in glory and power, like unto His own 
glorious body. Then to my surprise and alarm, the cof- 
fin, resting on its bearers, was placed over that dark hole, 
and I watched with curious eye the unrolling of those 
neat black bunches of cords, which I have often enough 
seen since. My father took the one at the head, and 
also another much smaller springing from the same point 
as his, which he had caused to be put there, and unroll- 
ing it, put it into my hand. I twisted it firmly round my 
fingers, and awaited the result; the burial men with their 
real ropes lowered the coffin, and when it rested at the 
bottom, it was too far down for me to see it — the grave 
was made very deep, as he used afterwards to tell us, 
that it might hold us all — my father first and abruptly 



134 MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 

let his cord drop, followed by the rest. This was too 
much. I now saw what was meant, and held on and 
fixed my fist and feet, and I believe my father had some 
difficulty in forcing open my small fingers ; he let the 
little black cord drop, and I remember, in my misery and 
anger, seeing its open end disappearing in the gloom. 

My mother's death was the second epoch in my father's 
life ; it marked a change at once and for life ; and for a 
man so self-reliant, so poised upon a centre of his own, 
it is wonderful the extent of change it made. He went 
home, preached her funeral sermon, every one in the 
church in tears, himself outwardly unmoved. 1 But from 
that time dates an entire, though always deepening, 
alteration in his manner of preaching, because an entire 
change in his way of dealing with God's Word. Not 
that his abiding religious views and convictions were 
then originated or even altered — I doubt not that from 
a child he not only knew the Holy Scriptures, but was 
" wise unto salvation " — but it strengthened and clari- 
fied, quickened and gave permanent direction to, his 
sense of God as revealed in His Word. He took as it 
were to subsoil ploughing ; he got a new and adamantine 
point to the instrument with which he bored, and with a 
fresh power — with his whole might, he sunk it right 
down into the living rock, to the virgin gold. His entire 
nature had got a shock, and his blood was drawn in- 
wards, his surface was chilled ; but fuel was heaped all 
the more on the inner fires, and his zeal, that n Oepjxbv 
7rpay/xa, burned with a new ardor ; indeed had he not 
found an outlet for his pent-up energy, his brain must 
have given way, and his faculties have either consumed 

1 1 have been told that once in the course of the sermon his voice 
trembled, and many feared he was about to break down. 



MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 135 

themselves in wild, wasteful splendor and combustion, or 
dwindled into lethargy. 1 

The manse became silent ; we lived and slept and 
played under the shadow of that death, and we saw, or 
rather felt, that he was another father than before. No 
more happy laughter from the two in the parlor, as he 
was reading Larry, the Irish postboy's letter in Miss 
Edgeworth's tale, or the last Waverley novel ; no more 
visitings in a cart with her, he riding beside us on his 
white thorough-bred pony, to Kilbucho, or Rachan Mill, 
or Kirklawhill. He went among his people as usual 
when they were ill ; he preached better than ever — 
they were sometimes frightened to think how wonder- 
fully he preached ; but the sunshine was over — the 
glad and careless look, the joy of young life and mutual 
love. He was little with us, and, as I said, the house 
was still, except when he was mandating his sermons for 
Sabbath. This he always did, not only viva voce, but 
with as much energy and loudness as in the pulpit ; we 
felt his voice was sharper, and rang keen through the 
house. 

What we lost, the congregation and the world gained. 
He gave himself wholly to his work. As you have 
yourself said, he changed his entire system and fashion 
of preaching ; from being elegant, rhetorical, and am- 
bitious, he became concentrated, urgent, moving (being 
himself moved), keen, searching, unswerving, authorita- 

i There is a story illustrative of this altered manner and matter of 
preaching. He had been preaching when very young, at Galashiels, 
and one wife said to her " neebor," " Jean, what think ye o' the lad ? " 
" IV 8 maist oH tinsel mark" said Jean, neither relishing nor appreciat- 
ing his fine sentiments and figures. After my mother's death, he 
preached in the same place, and Jean, running to her friend, took 
the first word, " IV s a* gowd woo." 



136 MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 

tive to fierceness, full of the terrors of the Lord, if he 
could but persuade men. The truth of the words of 
God had shone out upon him with an immediateness 
and infinity of meaning and power, which made them, 
though the same words he had looked on from child- 
hood, other and greater and deeper words. He then left 
the ordinary commentators, and men who write about 
meanings and flutter around the circumference and cor- 
ners ; he was bent on the centre, on touching with his 
own fingers, on seeing with his own eyes, the pearl of 
great price. Then it was that he began to dig into the 
depths, into the primary and auriferous rock of Scrip- 
ture, and take nothing at another's hand : then he took 
up with the word " apprehend ; " he had laid hold of the 
truth, — there it was, with its evidence, in his hand ; 
and every one who knew him must remember well how, 
in speaking with earnestness of the meaning of a passage, 
he, in his ardent, hesitating way, looked into the palm of 
his hand as if he actually saw there the truth he was 
going to utter. This word apprehend played a large 
part in his lectures, as the thing itself did in his pro- 
cesses of investigation, or, if I might make a word, in- 
dication. Comprehension, he said, was for few ; ap- 
prehension was for every man who had hands and a 
head to rule them, and an eye to direct them. Out of 
this arose one of his deficiencies. He could go largely 
into the generalities of a subject, and relished greatly 
others doing it, so that they did do it really and well ; 
but he was averse to abstract and wide reasonings. 
Principles he rejoiced in : he worked with them as with 
his choicest weapons ; they were the polished stones for 
his sling, against the Goliaths of presumption, error, and 
tyranny in thought or in polity, civil or ecclesiastical ; 



MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 137 

but he somehow divined a principle, or got at it naked 
and alone, rather than deduced it and brought it to a 
point from an immensity of particulars, and then ren- 
dered it back so as to bind them into one cosmos. One 
of my young friends now dead, who afterwards went to 
India, used to come and hear him in Broughton Place 
with me, and this word apprehend caught him, and as he 
had a great love for my father, in writing home to me, 
he never forgot to ask how " grand old Apprehend " 
was. 

From this time dates my father's possession and use 
of the German Exegetics. After my mother's death I 
slept with him ; his bed was in his study, a small room, 1 
with a very small grate ; and I remember well his get- 
ting those fat, shapeless, spongy German books, as if one 
would sink in them, and be bogged in their bibulous, 
unsized paper ; and watching him as he impatiently cut 
them up, and dived into them in his rapid, eclectic way, 
tasting them, and dropping for my play such a lot of soft, 
large, curled bits from the paper-cutter, leaving the edges 
all shaggy. He never came to bed when I was awake, 
which was not to be wondered at ; but I can remember 
often awaking far on in the night or morning, and see- 
ing that keen, beautiful, intense face bending over these 
Rosenmullers, and Ernestis, and Storrs, and Kuinoels — 
the fire out, and the gray dawn peering through the 
window ; and when he heard me move, he would speak 
to me in the foolish words of endearment my mother was 
wont to use, and come to bed, and take me, warm as I 
was, into his cold bosom. 

1 On a low chest of drawers in this room there lay for many years 
my mother's parasol, by his orders — I daresay, for long, the only one 
in Biggar. 



138 MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 

Vitringa in Jesaiam I especially remember, a noble 
folio. Even then, with that eagerness to communicate 
what he had himself found, of which you must often 
have been made the subject, he went and told it. He 
would try to make me, small man as I was, " appre- 
hend " what he and Vitringa between them had made 
out of the fifty-third chapter of his favorite prophet, 
the princely Isaiah. 1 Even then, so far as I can recall, 
he never took notes of what he read. He did not need 
this, his intellectual force and clearness were so great ; 
he was so totus in illo, whatever it was, that he re- 

1 His reading aloud of everything from John Gilpin to John Howe 
was a tine and high art. or rather gift. Henderson could not have 
given 

u The dinner waits, and we are tired ; " 
Says Gilpin, " So am I," 

better; and to hear him sounding the depths and cadences of the Liv- 
ing Temple, " bearing on its front this doleful inscription, ' Here God 
once dwelt,' " was like listening to the recitative of Handel. But 
Isaiah was his masterpiece ; and I remember quite well his startling 
us all when reading at family worship, " His name shall be called Won- 
derful, Counsellor, the mighty God," by a peremptory, explosive 
sharpness, as of thunder overhead, at the words " the mighty God," 
similar to the rendering now given to Handel's music, and doubtless 
so meant by him; and then closing with "the Prince of Peace, soft 
and low. No man who wishes to feel Isaiah, as well as understand 
him, should be ignorant of Handel's " Messiah." His prelude to 
" Comfort ye " — its simple theme, cheerful and infinite as the ripple 
of the unsearchable sea — gives a deeper meaning to the words. One 
of my father's great delights in his dying months was reading the 
lives of Handel and of Michael Angelo, then newly out. He felt that 
the author of " He was despised," and " He shall feed his flock," and 
those other wonderful airs, was a man of profound religious feeling, 
of which they were the utterance; and he rejoiced over the warlike 
airs and choruses of " Judas Maccabams. " You have recorded his 
estimate of the religious nature of him of the terribile via ; he said it 
was a relief to his mind to know that such a mighty genius walked 
humblv with his God. 



MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 139 

corded by a secret of its own, his mind's results and vic- 
tories and memoranda, as be went on ; he did not even 
mark his books, at least very seldom ; he marked his 
mind. 

He was thus every year preaching with more and 
more power, because with more and more knowledge 
and " pureness ; " and, as you say, there were probably 
nowhere in Britain such lectures delivered at that time 
to such an audience, consisting of country people, sound, 
devout, well-read in their Bibles and in the native di- 
vinity, but quite unused to persistent, deep, critical 
thought. 

Much of this — most of it — was entirely his own, 

self-originated and self-sustained, and done for its own 

sake, 

" All too happy in the pleasure 
Of his own exceeding treasure." 

But he often said, with deep feeling, that one thing put 
him always on his mettle, the knowledge that " yonder 
in that corner, under the gallery, sat, Sabbath after Sab- 
bath, a man who knew his Greek Testament better than 
I did." 

This was his brother-in-law, and one of his elders, 
Mr. Robert Johnston, married to his sister Violet, a 
merchant and portioner in Biggar, a remarkable man, 
of whom it is difficult to say to strangers what is true, 
without being accused of exaggeration. A shopkeeper 
in that remote little town, he not only intermeddled 
fearlessly with all knowledge, but mastered more than 
many practised and University men do in their own 
lines. Mathematics, astronomy, and especially what 
may be called selenology, or the doctrine of the moon, 
and the higher geometry and physics ; Hebrew, Sanscrit, 



140 MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 

Greek, and Latin, to the veriest rigors of prosody and 
metre ; Spanish and Italian, German, French, and any- 
odd language that came in his way ; all these he knew 
more or less thoroughly, and acquired them in the most 
leisurely, easy, cool sort of way, as if he grazed and 
browsed perpetually in the field of letters, rather than 
made formal meals, or gathered for any ulterior purpose, 
his fruits, his roots, and his nuts — he especially liked 
mental nuts — much less bought them from any one. 

With all this, his knowledge of human, and espec- 
ially of Biggar human nature, the ins and outs of its 
little secret ongoings, the entire gossip of the place, was 
like a woman's ; moreover, every personage great or 
small, heroic or comic, in Homer — whose poems he 
made it a matter of conscience to read once every four 
years — Plautus, Suetonius, Plutarch, Tacitus, and Lu- 
cian, down through Boccaccio and Don Quixote, which 
he knew by heart and from the living Spanish, to Jo- 
seph Andrews, the Spectator, Goldsmith and Swift, Miss 
Austen, Miss Edgeworth, and Miss Ferrier, Gait and 
Sir Walter, — he was as familiar with, as with David 
Crockat the nailer, or the parish minister, the town- 
drummer, the mole-catcher, or the poaching weaver, who 
had the night before leistered a prime kipper at Rachan 
Mill, by the flare of a tarry wisp, or brought home his 
surreptitious gray hen or maiikin from the wilds of 
Dunsyre or the dreary Lang Whang. 1 

This singular man came to the manse every Friday 
evening for many years, and he and my father dis- 
cussed everything and everybody ; — beginning with 
tough, strong head work — a bout at wrestling, be it 

1 With the practices of this last worthy, when carried on moder- 
ately, and for the sport's sake, he had a special sympathy. 



MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 141 

Caesar's Bridge, the Epistles of Phalaris, the import of /x,cV 
and 8c, the Catholic question, or the great roots of Chris- 
tian faith ; ending with the latest joke in the town or the 
West Raw, the last effusion by Affleck, tailor and poet, 
the last blunder of iEsop the apothecary, and the last 
repartee of the village fool, with the week's Edinburgh 
and Glasgow news by their respective carriers ; the 
whole little life, sad and humorous — who had been 
born, and who was dying or dead, married or about to 
be, for the past eight days. 1 

This amused, and, in the true sense, diverted my 
father, and gratified his curiosity, which was great, and 
his love of men, as well as for man. He was shy, and 
unwilling to ask what he longed to know, liking better 
to have it given him without the asking ; and no one 
could do this better than " Uncle Johnston." 

You may readily understand what a thorough exer- 
cise and diversion of an intellectual and social kind this 
was, for they were neither of them men to shirk from 
close gripes, or trifle and flourish with their weapons ; 
they laid on and spared not. And then my uncle had 
generally some special nut of his own to crack, some 
thesis to fling down and offer battle on, some " particle " 
to energize upon ; for though quiet and calm, he was 
thoroughly combative, and enjoyed seeing his friend's 
blood up, and hearing his emphatic and bright speech, 
and watching his flashing eye. Then he never spared 

1 1 believe this was the true though secret source of much of my 
father's knowledge of the minute personal history of every one in his 
region, which, — to his people, knowing his reserved manner and his 
devotion to his studies, and his so rarely meeting them or speaking to 
them except from the pulpit, or at a diet of visitation, was a perpetual 
wonder, and of which he made great use in his dealings with his 
afflicted or erring " members." 



142 MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 

him ; criticized and sometimes quizzed — for he had great 
humor — his style, as well as debated and weighed his 
apprehendings and exegeses, shaking them heartily to 
test their strength. He was so thoroughly independent 
of all authority, except that of reason and truth, and 
his own humor ; so ready to detect what was weak, ex- 
travagant, or unfair; so full of relish for intellectual 
power and accuracy, and so attached to and proud of 
my father, and bent on his making the best of himself, 
that this trial was never relaxed. His firm and close- 
grained mind was a sort of whetstone on which my father 
sharpened his wits at this weekly " setting." 

The very difference of their mental tempers and com- 
plexions drew them together — the one impatient, ner- 
vous, earnest, instant, swift, vehement, regardless of ex- 
ertion, bent on his goal, like a thorough-bred racer, 
pressing to the mark ; the other leisurely to slowness 
and provokingness, with a constitution which could stand 
a great deal of ease, unimpassioned, still, clear, untroub- 
led by likings or dislikings, dwelling and working in 
thought and speculation and observation as ends in 
themselves, and as their own rewards : 1 the one hunt- 

1 He was curiously destitute of all literary ambition or show ; like 
the cactus iu the desert, always plump, always taking in the dew of 
heaven, and caring little to give it out. He wrote many papers in the 
Repository and Monitor, an acute and clever tract on the Voluntary 
controversy, entitled Calm Answers to Angry Questions, and was the 
author of a capital bit of literary banter — a Congratulatory Letter to 
the Minister of Liberton, who had come down upon my father in a 
pamphlet, for his sermon on " There remaineth much land to be pos- 
sessed." It is a mixture of Swift and Arbuthnot. I remember one 
of the flowers he culls from him he is congratulating, in which my 
father is characterized as one of those " shallow, sallow souls that 
would swallow the bait, without perceiving the cloven foot!" But 
a man like this never is best in a book ; he is always greater than his 
work. 



MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 143 

ing for a principle or a " divine method ; " the other sap- 
ping or shelling from a distance, and for his pleasure, 
a position, or gaining a point, or settling a rule, or ver- 
ifying a problem, or getting axiomatic and proverbial. 

In appearance they were as curiously unlike ; my 
uncle short and round to rotundity, homely and florid 
in feature. I used to think Socrates must have been 
like him in visage as well as in much of his mind. He 
was careless in his dress, his hands in his pockets as a 
rule, and strenuous only in smoking or in sleep ; with a 
large, full skull, a humorous twinkle in his cold, blue 
eye, a soft, low voice, expressing every kind of thought in 
the same, sometimes plaguily douce tone ; a great power 
of quiet and telling sarcasm, large capacity of listening 
to and of enjoying other men's talk, however small. 

My father — tall, slim, agile, quick in his movements, 
graceful, neat to nicety in his dress, with much in his 
air of what is called style, with a face almost too beauti- 
ful for a man's, had not his eyes commanded it and 
all who looked at it, and his close, firm mouth been 
ready to say what the fiery spirit might bid ; his eyes, 
when at rest, expressing — more than almost any other's 
I ever saw — sorrow and tender love, a desire to give 
and to get sympathy, and a sort of gentle, deep sadness, 
as if that was their permanent state, and gladness their 
momentary act ; but when awakened, full of fire, per- 
emptory, and not to be trifled with ; and his smile, and 
flash of gayety and fun, something no one could forget; 
his hair in early life a dead black ; his eyebrows of ex- 
quisite curve, narrow and intense ; his voice deep when 
unmoved and calm ; keen and sharp to piercing fierce- 
ness when vehement and roused — in the pulpit, at times 
a shout, at times a pathetic wail ; his utterance hesitat- 



144 MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 

ing, emphatic, explosive, powerful, — each sentence shot 
straight and home ; his hesitation arising from his crowd 
of impatient ideas, and his resolute will that they should 
come in their order, and some of them not come at all, 
only the best, and his settled determination that each 
thought should be dressed in the very and only word 
which he stammered on till it came, — it was generally 
worth his pains and ours. 

Uncle Johnston, again, flowed on like Caesar's Arar, 
incredibili le?iitate, or like linseed out of a poke. You 
can easily fancy the spiritual and bodily contrast of 
these men, and can fancy too, the kind of engagements 
they would have with their own proper weapons on 
these Friday evenings, in the old manse dining-room, 
my father showing uncle out into the darkness of the 
back-road, and uncle, doubtless, lighting his black and 
ruminative pipe. 

If my uncle brought up nuts to crack, my father was 
sure to have some difficulties to consult about, or some 
passages to read, something that made him put his whole 
energy forth ; and when he did so, I never heard such 
reading. To hear him read the story of Joseph, or 
passages in David's history, and Psalms 6th, 11th, and 
loth, or the 52d, 53d, 54th, 55th, 63d, 64th, and 40th 
chapters of Isaiah, or the Sermon on the Mount, or 
the Journey to Emmaus, or our Saviour's prayer in 
John, or Paul's speech on Mars' Hill, or the first three 
chapters of Hebrews and the latter part of the 11th, 
or Job, or the Apocalypse ; or, to pass from those divine 
themes — Jeremy Taylor, or George Herbert, Sir Walter 
Raleigh, or Milton's prose, such as the passage beginning 
" Come forth out of thy royal chambers, thou Prince 
of all the kings of the earth '! " and " Truth, indeed, 



MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 145 

came once into the world with her divine Master," or 
Charles Wesley's Hymns, or, most loved of all, Cowper, 
from the rapt " Come thou, and, added to thy many 
crowns," or " O that those lips had language ! " to the 
Jackdaw, and his incomparable Letters ; or Gray's Po- 
ems, Burns's " Tarn O'Shanter," or Sir Walter's " Eve 
of St. John," * and " The Gray Brother." 

But I beg your pardon : Time has run back with me, 
and fetched that blessed past, and awakened its echoes. 
I hear his voice ; I feel his eye ; I see his whole nature 
given up to what he is reading, and making its very soul 
speak. 

Such a man then as I have sketched, or washed faintly 
in, as the painters say, was that person who sat in the 
corner under the gallery every Sabbath-day, and who 
knew his Greek Testament better than his minister. He 
is dead too, a few months ago, dying surrounded with 
his cherished hoard of books of all sizes, times, and 
tongues — tatterdemalion many ; all however drawn up 
in an order of his own ; all thoroughly mastered and 
known ; among them David Hume's copy of Shaftes- 
bury's Characteristics, with his autograph, which he had 
picked up at some stall. 

I have said that my mother's death was the second 
epoch in my father's life. I should perhaps have said 

1 Well do I remember when driving him from Melrose to Kelso, 
long ago, we came near Sandyknowe, that grim tower of Smailholm, 
standing erect like a warder turned to stone, defying time and change, 
his bursting into that noble ballad — 

" The Baron of Smaylho'me rose with day, 
He spurr'd his courser on, 
Without stop or stay, down the rocky way, 
That leads to Brotherstone ; " 

and pointing out the " Watchfold height," " the eiry Beacon Hill," 
and "Brotherstone." 

10 



146 MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 

the third ; the first being his mother's long illness and 
death, and the second his going to Elie, and beginning 
the battle of life at fifteen. There must have been some- 
thing very delicate and close and exquisite in the rela- 
tion between the ailing, silent, beautiful, and pensive 
mother, and that dark-eyed, dark-haired, bright and 
silent son ; a sort of communion it is not easy to ex- 
press. You can think of him at eleven slowly writing 
out that small book of promises in a distinct and minute 
hand, quite as like his mature hand, as the shy, lus- 
trous-eyed boy was to his after-self in his manly years, 
and sitting by the bedside while the rest were out and 
shouting, playing at hide-and-seek round the little church, 
with the winds from Benlomond or the wild uplands of 
Ayrshire blowing through their hair. He played seldom, 
but when he did run out, he jumped higher and farther, 
and ran faster than any of them. His peculiar beauty 
must have come from his mother. He used at rare times, 
and with a sort of shudder, to tell of her when a lovely 
girl of fifteen, having been seen by a gentleman of rank, 
in Cheap side, hand in hand with an evil woman, who 
was decoying her to ruin, on pretence of showing her the 
way home ; and how he stopped his carriage and taking 
in the unconscious girl, drove her to her uncle's door. 
But you have said all this better than I can. 

His time with his mother, and the necessary confine- 
ment and bodily depression caused by it, I doubt not 
deepened his native thoughtful turn, and his tendency to 
meditative melancholy, as a condition under which he 
viewed all things, and quickened and intensified his sense 
of the suffering of this world, and of the profound seri- 
ousness and mystery in the midst of which we live and die. 

The second epoch was that of his leaving home with 



MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 147 

his guinea, the last he ever got from any one but him- 
self; and his going among utter strangers to be master 
of a school one half of the scholars of which were big- 
ger and older than himself, and all rough colts — wilful 
and unbroken. This was his first fronting of the world. 
Besides supporting himself, this knit the sinews of his 
mind, and made him rely on himself in action as well as 
in thought. He sometimes, but not often, spoke of this, 
never lightly, though he laughed at some of his predica- 
ments. He could not forget the rude shock. Generally 
those familiar revelations were at supper, on the Sab- 
bath evening, when, his work over, he enjoyed and ling- 
ered over his meal. 

From his young and slight, almost girlish look, and 
his refined, quiet manners, the boys of the school were 
inclined to annoy and bully him. He saw this, and felt 
it was now or never, — nothing between. So he took 
his line. The biggest boy, much older and stronger, was 
the rudest, and infected the rest. The " wee maister " 
ordered him, in that peremptory voice we all remember, 
to stand up and hold out his hand, being not at all sure 
but the big fellow might knock him down on the word. 
To the astonishment of the school, and to the big rebel's 
too, he obeyed and was punished on the instant, and 
to the full ; out went the hand, down came the " taws" 
and bit like fire. From that moment he ruled them by 
his eye, the taws vanished. 

There was an incident at this time of his life which 
I should perhaps not tell, and yet I don't know why 
I shouldn't, it so perfectly illustrates his character in 
many ways. He had come home daring the vacation 
of his school to Langrig, and was about to go back ; he 
had been renewing his intercourse with his old teacher 



148 MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 

and friend whom you mention, from whom he used to 
say he learned to like Shakspeare, and who seems to 
have been a man of genuine literary tastes. He went 
down to bid him good-bye, and doubtless they got on their 
old book loves, and would be spouting their pet pieces. 
The old dominie said, " John, my man, if you are walk- 
ing into Edinburgh, I'll convoy you a bit." " John " 
was too happy, so next morning they set off, keeping 
up a constant fire of quotation and eager talk. They 
got past Mid-Calder to near East, when my father in- 
sisted on his friend returning, and also on going back 
a bit with him ; on looking at the old man, he thought 
he was tired, so on reaching the well-known " Kippen's 
Inn," he stopped and insisted on giving him some refresh- 
ment. Instead of ordering bread and cheese and a bot- 
tle of ale, he, doubtless full of Shakspeare, and great 
upon sack and canary, ordered a bottle of wine ! Of this, 
you may be sure, the dominie, as he most needed it, 
had the greater share, and doubtless it warmed the coc- 
kles of his old heart. " John " making him finish the 
bottle, and drink the health of " Gentle Will," saw him 
off, and went in to pay the reckoning. What did he 
know of the price of wine ! It took exactly every penny 
he had ; I doubt not, most boys, knowing that the land- 
lord knew them, would have either paid a part, or asked 
him to score it up. This was not his way ; he was too 
proud and shy and honest for such an expedient. By 
this time, what with discussing Shakspeare, and witness- 
ing his master's leisurely emptying of that bottle, and 
releasing the 

" Dear prisoned spirits of the impassioned grape," 
he found he must run for it to Edinburgh, or rather 
Leith, fourteen miles ; this he did, and was at the pier 



MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 149 

just in time to jump into the Elie pinnace, which was 
already off. He often wondered what he would have 
done if he had been that one moment late. You can 
easily pick out the qualities this story unfolds. 

His nature, capable as it was of great, persistent, and 
indeed dogged labor, was, from the predominance of the 
nervous system in his organization, excitable, and there- 
fore needed and relished excitement — the more intense 
the better. He found this in his keen political tastes, 
in imaginative literature, and in fiction. In the highest 
kind of poetry he enjoyed the sweet pain of tears ; and 
he all his life had a steady liking, even a hunger, for 
a good novel. This refreshed, lightened, and diverted 
his mind from the strain of his incessant exegesis. He 
used always to say that Sir Walter and Goldsmith, and 
even Fielding, Miss Edgeworth, Miss Austen, and Miss 
Ferrier, were true benefactors to the race, by giving 
such genuine, such secure and innocent pleasure ; and he 
often repeated with admiration Lord Jeffrey's words on 
Scott, inscribed on his monument. He had no turn for 
gardening or for fishing or any field sports or games ; 
his sensitive nature recoiled from the idea of pain, and 
above all, needless pain. He used to say the lower 
creation had groans enough, and needed no more bur- 
dens ; indeed, he was fierce to some measure of unfair- 
ness against such of his brethren — Dr. Wardlaw, for 
instance 1 — as resembled the apostles in fishing for other 
things besides men. 

But the exercise and the excitement he most of all 
others delighted in, was riding ; and had he been a coun- 
try gentleman and not a clergyman, I don't think he 

1 After a tight discussion between these two attached friends, Dr. 
Wardlaw said, " Well, I can't answer you, but fish I must and shall.'' 



150 MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 

could have resisted fox-bunting. With the exception of 
that great genius in more than horsemanship, Andrew 
Ducrow, I never saw a man sit a horse as he did. He 
seemed inspired, gay, erect, full of the joy of life, fearless 
and secure. I have heard a farmer friend say if he had 
not been a preacher of the gospel he would have been a 
cavalry officer, and would have fought as he preached. 

He was known all over the Upper Ward and down 
Tweeddale for his riding. " There goes the minister," 
as he rode past at a swift canter. He had generally 
well-bred horses, or as I would now call them, ponies ; 
if he had not, his sufferings from a dull, hardmouthed, 
heavy-hearted and footed, plebeian horse were almost 
comic. On his gray mare, or his little blood bay horse, 
to see him setting off and indulging it and himself in 
some alarming gambols, and in the midst of his difficul- 
ties, partly of his own making, taking off his hat or kiss- 
ing his hand to a lady, made one think of " young 
Harry with his beaver up." He used to tell with much 
relish, how, one fine summer Sabbath evening after 
preaching in the open air for a collection, in some village 
near, and having put the money, chiefly halfpence, into 
his handkerchief, and that into his hat, he was taking 
a smart gallop home across the moor, happy and re- 
lieved, when three ladies — I think, the Miss Bertrams 
of Kersewell — came suddenly upon him; off went the 
hat, down bent the head, and over him streamed the 
cherished collection, the ladies busy among the wild grass 
and heather picking it up, and he full of droll confusion 
and laughter. 

The gray mare he had for many years. I can remem- 
ber her small head and large eyes ; her neat, compact 
body, round as a barrel ; her finely flea-bitten skin, and 



MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 151 

her thorough -bred legs. I have no doubt she had Ara- 
bian blood. My father's pride in her was quite curious. 
Many a wild ride to and from the Presbytery at Lanark, 
and across flooded and shifting fords, he had on her. 
She was as sweet-tempered and enduring, as she was 
swift and sure ; and her powers of running were appre- 
ciated and applied in a way which he was both angry and 
amused to discover. You know what riding the bruse 
means. At a country wedding the young men have a 
race to the bridegroom's home, and he who wins, brings 
out a bottle and glass and drinks the young wife's health. 
I wish Burns had described a bruse ; all sorts of steeds, 
wild, unkempt lads as well as colts, old broken-down 
thorough-breds that did wonders when soopled, huge, 
grave cart horses devouring the road with their shaggy 
hoofs, wilful ponies, etc. You can imagine the wild 
hurry-skurry and fun, the comic situations and upsets 
over a rough road, up and down places one would be 
giddy to look at. 

Well, the young farmers were in the habit of com- 
ing to my father, and asking the loan of the mare to 
go and see a friend, etc., etc., praising knowingly the fine 
points and virtues of his darling. Having through life, 
with all his firmness of nature, an abhorrence of saying 
" No " to any one, the interview generally ended with, 
" Well, Robert, you may have her, but take care of her, 
and don't ride her fast." In an hour or two Robert was 
riding the bruse, and flying away from the crowd, Gray 
first, and the rest nowhere, and might be seen turning 
the corner of the farm-house with the victorious bottle in 
his uplifted hand, the motley pack panting vainly up the 
hill. This went on for long, and the gray was famous, 
almost notorious, all over the Upper Ward ; sometimes 



152 MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 

if she appeared, no one would start, and she trotted the 
course. Partly from his own personal abstraction from 
outward country life, and partly from Uncle Johnston's 
sense of waggery keeping him from telling his friend of 
the gray's last exploit at Hartree Mill, or her leaping 
over the " best man " at Thriepland, my father was the 
last to hear of this equivocal glory of " the minister's 
meer" Indeed, it was whispered she had once won a 
whip at Lanark races. They still tell of his feats on 
this fine creature, one of which he himself never alluded 
to without a feeling of shame. He had an engagement 
to preach somewhere beyond the Clyde on a Sabbath 
evening, and his excellent and attached friend and elder, 
Mr. Kello of Lindsay-lands, accompanied him on his 
big plough horse. It was to be in the open air, on the 
river side. When they got to the Clyde they found it 
in full flood, heavy and sudden rains at the head of the 
water having brought it down in a wild spate. On the 
opposite side were the gathered people and the tent. 
Before Mr. Kello knew where he was, there was his 
minister on the mare swimming across, and carried down 
in a long diagonal, the people looking on in terror. He 
landed, shook himself, and preached with his usual fer- 
vor. As I have said, he never liked to speak of this 
bit of hardihood, and he never repeated it ; but it was 
like the man — there were the people, that was what he 
would be at, and though timid for anticipated danger 
as any woman, in it he was without fear. 

One more illustration of his character in connection 
with his riding. On coming to Edinburgh he gave up 
this kind of exercise ; he had no occasion for it, and he 
had enough, and more than enough of excitement in the 
public questions in which he found himself involved, and 



MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 153 

in the miscellaneous activities of a popular town minis- 
ter. I was then a young doctor — it must have been 
about 1840 — and had a patient, Mrs. James Robert- 
son, eldest daughter of Mr. Pirie, the predecessor of 
Dr. Dick in what was then Shuttle Street congregation, 
Glasgow. She was one of my father's earliest and dear- 
est friends, — a mother in the Burgher Israel, she and 
her cordial husband " given to hospitality," especially 
to " the Prophets." She was hopelessly ill at Juniper 
Green, near Edinburgh. Mr. George Stone, then liv- 
ing at Muirhouse, one of my father's congregation in 
Broughton Place, a man of equal originality and worth, 
and devoted to his minister, knowing my love of riding, 
offered me his blood-chestnut to ride out and make my 
visit. My father said, " John, if you are going, I would 
like to ride out with you ; " he wished to see his dying 
friend. " You ride ! " said Mr. Stone, who was a very 
Yorkshireman in the matter of horses. " Let him try," 
said I. The upshot was, that Mr. Stone sent the chest- 
nut for me, and a sedate pony — called, if I forget not, 
Goliath — for his minister, with all sorts of injunctions 
to me to keep him off the thorough-bred, and on Goliath. 
My father had not been on a horse for nearly twenty 
years. He mounted and rode off. He soon got teased 
with the short, pattering steps of Goliath, and looked 
wistfully up at me, and longingly to the tall chestnut, 
stepping once for Goliath's twice, like the Don striding 
beside Sancho. I saw what he was after, and when 
past the toll he said in a mild sort of way, " John, did 
you promise absolutely I was not to ride your horse ? " 
" No, father, certainly not. Mr. Stone, I daresay, wished 
me to do so, but I didn't." " Well then, I think we'll 
change ; this beast shakes me." So we changed. I re- 



154 MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 

member how noble he looked ; how at home : his white 
hair and his dark eyes, his erect, easy, accustomed seat. 
He soon let his eager horse slip gently away. It was 
first evasit, he was off, Goliath and I jogging on behind ; 
then erupit, and in a twinkling — evanuit. I saw them 
last flashing through the arch under the Canal, his white 
hair flying. I was uneasy, though from his riding I 
knew he was as yet in command, so I put Goliath to his 
best, and having passed through Slateford, I asked 
a stonebreaker if he saw a gentleman on a chestnut 
horse. " Has he white hair ? " " Yes." " And een 
like a gled's ? " " Yes." " Weel then, he's fleein' up 
the road like the wund ; he'll be at Little Vantage 
(about nine miles off) " in nae time if he baud on." I 
never once sighted him, but on coming into Juniper 
Green there was his steaming chestnut at the gate, 
neighing cheerily to Goliath. I went in, he was at 
the bedside of his friend, and in the midst of prayer; 
his words as I entered were, "When thou passest 
through the waters I will be with thee, and through 
the rivers, they shall not overflow thee ; " and he was 
not the least instant in prayer that his blood was up 
with his ride. He never again saw Mrs. Robertson, 
or as she was called when they were young, Sibbie 
(Sibella) Pirie. On coming out he said nothing, but 
took the chestnut, mounted her, and we came home 
quietly. His heart was opened ; he spoke of old times 
and old friends ; he stopped at the exquisite view at 
Hailes into the valley, and up the Pentlands beyond, 
the smoke of Kate's Mill rising in the still and shadowy 
air, and broke out into Cowper's words : Yes, — 

" HE sets the bright procession on its way, 
And marshals all the order of the year ; 



MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 155 

And ere one flowery season fades and dies, 
Designs the blooming wonders of the next." 

Then as we came slowly in, the moon shone behind 
Craiglockhart hill among the old Scotch firs ; he pulled 
up again, and gave me Collins' Ode to Evening, begin- 



ning 



" If aught of oaten stop, or pastoral song, 
May hope, chaste Eve, to soothe thy modest ear, 
Thy springs, and dying gales; " 

repeating over and over some of the lines, as 

" Thy modest ear, 
Thy springs, and dying gales." 

" — And marks o'er all 
Thy dewy fingers draw 
The gradual dusky veil." 

And when she looked out on us clear and full, " Yes — 

" The moon takes up the wondrous tale, 
And nightly to the listening earth 
Repeats the story of her birth." 

As we passed through Slateford, he spoke of Dr. Bel- 
frage, his great-hearted friend, of his obligations to him, 
and of his son, my friend, both lying together in Colin- 
ton churchyard ; and of Dr. Dick, who was minister be- 
fore him, of the Coventrys, and of Stitchel and Sprous- 
ton, of his mother, and of himself, — his doubts of his own 
sincerity in religion, his sense of sin, of God — revert- 
ing often to his dying friend. Such a thing only oc- 
curred to me with him once or twice all my life ; and 
then when we were home, he was silent, shut up, self- 
contained as before. He was himself conscious of this 
habit of reticence, and what may be called selfism to us, 
his children, and lamented it. I remember his saying 
in a sort of mournful joke, " I have a well of love ; I 



156 MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 

know it ; but it is a well, and a draw-well, to your sor- 
row and mine, and it seldom overflows, but," looking 
with that strange power of tenderness as if he put his 
voice and his heart into his eyes, " you may always come 
hither to draw ; " he used to say he might take to him- 
self Wordsworth's lines, — 

" I am not one who much or oft delights 
To season my fireside with personal talk." 

And changing " though " into " if: " 

" A well of love it may be deep, 
I trust it is, and never dry; 
What matter, though its waters sleep 
In silence and obscurity? " 

The expression of his affection was more like the 
shock of a Leyden jar, than the continuous current of 
a galvanic circle. 

There was, as I have said, a permanent chill given 
by my mother's death, to what may be called the outer 
surface of his nature, and we at home felt it much. The 
blood was thrown in upon the centre, and went forth in 
energetic and victorious work, in searching the Scrip- 
tures and saving souls ; but his social faculty never re- 
covered that shock ! it was blighted ; he was always de- 
siring to be alone and at his work. A stranger who saw 
him for a short time, bright, animated, full of earnest and 
cordial talk, pleasing and being pleased, the life of the 
company, was apt to think how delightful he must always 
be, — and so he was ; but these times of bright talk were 
like angels' visits ; and he smiled with peculiar benignity 
on his retiring guest, as if blessing him not the less for 
leaving him to himself. I question if there ever lived a 
man so much in the midst of men, and in the midst of 



MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 157 

his own children, 1 in whom the silences, as Mr. Carlyle 
would say, were so predominant. Every Sabbath he 
spoke out of the abundance of his heart, his whole mind; 
he was then communicative and frank enough : all the 
week, before and after, he would not unwillingly have 
never opened his mouth. Of many people we may say 
that their mouth is always open except when it is shut ; 
of him that his mouth was always shut except when it 
was opened. Every one must have been struck with the 
seeming inconsistency of his occasional brilliant, happy, 
energetic talk, and his habitual silentness — his difficulty 
in getting anything to say. But, as I have already said, 
what we lost, the world and the church gained. 

When travelling he was always in high spirits and full 
of anecdote and fun. Indeed I knew more of his inner 
history in this one way, than during years of living with 
him. I recollect his taking me with him to Glasgow 
when I must have been about fourteen ; we breakfasted 
in " The Ram's Horn Tavern" and I felt a new respect 
for him at his commanding the waiters. He talked a 
great deal during our short tour, and often have I de- 
sired to recall the many things he told me of his early 
life, and of his own religious crises, my mother's death, 
his fear of his own death, and all this intermingled with 
the drollest stories of his boy and student life. 

We went to Paisley and dined, I well remember, we 
two alone, and, as I thought, magnificently, in a great 
apartment in " The Saracen's Head," at the end of which 
was the county ball-room. We had come across from 
Dunoon and landed in a small boat at the Water Neb 
along with Mrs. Dr. Hall, a character Sir Walter or 
Gait would have made immortal. My father with char- 
1 He gave us all the education we got at Biggar. 



158 MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 

acteristic ardor took an oar, for the first time in his life, 
and I believe for the last, to help the old boatman on the 
Cart, and wishing to do something decided, missed the 
water, and went back head over heels to the immense 
enjoyment of Mrs. Hall, who said, " Less pith, and mair 
to the purpose, my man." She didn't let the joke die 
out. 

Another time — it was when his second marriage was 
fixed on, to our great happiness and his — I had just 
taken my degree of M.D., and he took Isabella, William, 
and myself to Moffat. By a curious felicity we got into 
Miss Geddes' lodgings, where the village circulating 
library was kept, the whole of which we aver he read in 
ten days. I never saw him so happy, so open and full 
of mirth, reading to us, and reciting the poetry of his 
youth. On these rare but delightful occasions he was 
fond of exhibiting, when asked, his powers of rapid 
speaking, in which he might have rivalled old Matthews 
or his son. His favorite feat was repeating u Says I to 
my Lord, quo' I — what for will ye no grund ma barley- 
meal mouter-free, says I to my Lord, quo' I, says I, 
I says." He was brilliant upon the final, " I says." 
Another chef-d'oeuvre was, " On Tintock tap there is a 
mist, and in the mist there is a kist (a chest), and in the 
kist there is a cap (a wooden bowl), and in the cap there 
is a drap, tak' up the cap, and sup the drap, and set the 
cap on Tintock tap." This he could say, if I mistake 
not, five times without drawing breath. It was a fa- 
vorite passage this, and he often threatened to treat it 
exegetically ; laughing heartily when I said, in that case, 
he would not have great trouble with the context, which 
in others cost him a good deal. 

His manners to ladies, and indeed to all women, was 



MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 159 

that of a courtly gentleman ; they could be romantic in 
their empressement and devotion, and I used to think Sir 
Philip Sydney, or Ariosto's knights and the Paladins of 
old, must have looked and moved as he did. He had 
great pleasure in the company of high-bred, refined 
thoughtful women ; and he had a peculiar sympathy with 
the sufferings, the necessary mournfulness of women, and 
with all in their lot connected with the fruit of that for- 
bidden tree — their loneliness, the sorrows of their time, 
and their pangs in travail, their peculiar relation to their 
children. I think I hear him reading the words, " Can 
a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not 
have compassion on the son of her womb ? Yea " (as 
if it was the next thing to impossible), " she may forget, 
yet will not I forget thee." Indeed, to a man who saw 
so little of, and said so little to his own children, perhaps 
it may be because of all this, his sympathy for mothers 
under loss of children, his real suffering for their suffer- 
ing, not only endeared him to them as their minister, 
their consoler, and gave him opportunities of dropping in 
divine and saving truth and comfort, when the heart was 
full and soft, tender, and at his mercy, but it brought out 
in his only loss of this kind, the mingled depth, tender- 
ness, and also the peremptoriness of his nature. 

In the case of the death of little Maggie — a child 
the very image of himself in face, lovely and pensive, 
and yet ready for any fun, with a keenness of affection 
that perilled everything on being loved, who must cling 
to some one and be clasped, made for a garden, for the 
first garden, not for the rough world, the child of his 
old age — this peculiar meeting of opposites was very 
marked. She was stricken with sudden illness, malig- 
nant sore throat ; her mother was gone, and so she was 



160 MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 

to my father as a flower he had the sole keeping of; and 
his joy in her wild mirth, his watching her childish 
moods of sadness, as if a shadow came over her young 
heaven, were themselves something to watch. Her deli- 
cate life made no struggle with disease ; it as it were 
declined to stay on such conditions. She therefore sunk 
at once and without much pain, her soul quick and 
unclouded, and her little forefinger playing to the last 
with my father's silvery curls, her eyes trying in vain 
to brighten his : — 

" Thou wert a dew-drop which the morn brings forth, 
Not fitted to be trailed along the soiling earth; 
But at the touch of wrong, without a strife, 
Slips in a moment out of life." 

His distress, his anguish at this stroke, was not only in- 
tense, it was in its essence permanent ; he went mourn- 
ing and looking for her all his days ; but after she was 
dead, that resolved will compacted him in an instant. It 
was on a Sabbath morning she died, and he was all day 
at church, not many yards from where lay her little 
corpse alone in the house. His colleague preached in 
the forenoon, and in the afternoon he took his turn, say- 
ing before beginning his discourse : — "It has pleased 
the Father of Lights to darken one of the lights of my 
dwelling — had the child lived I would have remained 
with her, but now I have thought it right to arise and 
come into the house of the Lord and worship." Such 
violence to one part of his nature by that in it which 
was supreme, injured him : it was like pulling up on the 
instant an express train ; the whole inner organization is 
minutely, though it may be invisibly hurt ; its molecu- 
lar constitution damaged by the cruel stress and strain. 
Such things are not right ; they are a cruelty and injustice 



MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 161 

and injury from the soul to the body, its faithful slave, 
and they bring down, as in his case they too truly did, 
their own certain and specific retribution. A man who 
did not feel keenly might have preached ; a man whose 
whole nature was torn, shattered, and astonished as his 
was, had in a high sense no right so to use himself; and 
w r hen too late he opened his eyes to this. It was part of 
our old Scottish severe unsparing character — calm to cold- 
ness outside, burning to fierceness, tender to agony within. 
I was saying how much my father enjoyed women's 
company. He liked to look on them, and watch them, 
listening * to their keen, unconnected, and unreasoning, 
but not unreasonable talk. Men's argument, or rather 
arguing, and above all debating, he disliked. He had 
no turn for it. He was not combative, much less con- 
tentious. He was, however, warlike. Anything that 
he could destroy, any falsehood or injustice, he made 
for, not to discuss, but to expose and kill. He could 
not fence with his mind much less with his tongue, and 
had no love for the exploits of a nimble dialectic. He 
had no readiness either in thought or word for this ; his 
way was slowly to think out a subject, to get it well 
" bottomed," as Locke would say ; he was not careful 
as to recording the steps he took in their order, but the 
spirit of his mind was logical, as must be that of all 

1 One day my mother, and her only sister, Agnes — married to 
James Aitken of Cullands, a man before his class and his time, for 
long the only Whig and Seceder laird in Peeblesshire, and with whom 
my father shared the Edinburgh Review from its beginning — the two 
sisters who were, the one to the other, as Martha was to Mary, sat 
talking of their household doings; my aunt was great upon some 
things she could do; my father looked up from his book, and said, 
" There is one thing, Mrs. Aitken, you cannot do — you cannot turn 
the heel of a stocking; " and he was right, he had noticed her make 
over this " kittle " turn to her mother. 
11 



162 MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 

minds who seek and find truth, for logic is nothing else 
than the arithmetic of thought ; having therefore thought 
it out, he proceeded to put it into formal expression. 
This he did so as never again to undo it. His mind 
seemed to want the wheels by which this is done, vesti- 
gia nulla retrorsum, and having stereotyped it, he was 
never weary of it ; it never lost its life and freshness to 
him, and he delivered it as emphatically thirty years 
after it had been cast, as the first hour of its existence. 
I have said he was no swordsman, but he was a 
heavy shot ; he fired off his ball, compact, weighty, the 
maximum of substance in the minimum of bulk ; he put 
in double charge, pointed the muzzle, and fired, with 
what force and sharpness we all remember. If it hit, 
good ; if not, all he could do was to load again, with the 
same ball, and in the same direction. You must come 
to him to be shot, at least you must stand still, for 
he had a want of mobility of mind in great questions. 
He could not stalk about the field like a sharp-shooter ; 
his was a great sixty-eight pounder, and it was not much 
of a swivel. Thus it was that he rather dropped into 
the minds of others his authoritative assertions, and left 
them to breed conviction. If they gave them entrance 
and cherished them, they would soon find how full of 
primary truth they were, and how well they would serve 
them, as they had served him. With all this heavy 
artillery, somewhat slow and cumbrous, on great ques- 
tions, he had no want, when he was speaking off-hand, 
of quick, snell remark, often witty and full of spirit, and 
often too unexpected, like lightning — flashing, smiting, 
and gone. In Church Courts this was very marked. 
On small ordinary matters, a word from him would set- 
tle a long discussion. He would, after lively, easy talk 



MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 163 

with his next neighbor, set him up to make a speech, 
which was conclusive. But on great questions he must 
move forward his great gun with much solemnity and 
effort, partly from his desire to say as much of the truth 
at once as he could, partly from the natural concentra- 
tion and rapidity of his mind in action, as distinguished 
from his slowness when incubating, or in the process of 
thought, — and partly from a sort of self-consciousness 
— I might almost call it a compound of pride and ner- 
vous diffidence — which seldom left him. He desired 
to say it so that it might never need to be said again 
or otherwise by himself, or any one else. 

This strong personality, along with a prevailing love 
to be alone, and dwell with thoughts rather than with 
thinkers, pervaded his entire character. His religion 
was deeply personal, 1 not only as affecting himself, but 
as due to a personal God, and presented through the 
sacrifice and intercession of the God-man ; and it was 
perhaps owing to his " conversation " being so habitu- 
ally in heaven — his social and affectionate desires fill- 
ing themselves continually from " all the fulness of 
God," through living faith and love — that he the less 
felt the need of giving and receiving human affection. 
I never knew any man who lived more truly under the 
power, and sometimes under the shadow of the world to 
come. This world had to him little reality except as 
leading to the next ; little interest, except as the time of 
probation and sentence. A child brought to him to be 
baptized was in his mind, and in his words, " a young 
immortal to be educated for eternity ; " a birth was the 

1 In his own words, " A personal Deity is the soul of Natural Re- 
ligion; a personal Saviour — the real living Christ — is the soul of 
Revealed Religion." 



164 MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 

beginning of what was never to end ; sin — his own and 
that of the race — was to him, as it must be to all men 
who can think, the great mystery, as it is the main curse 
of time. The idea of it — of its exceeding sinfulness — 
haunted and oppressed him. He used to say of John 
Foster, that this deep and intense, but sometimes nar- 
row and grim thinker, had, in his study of the disease 
of the race, been, as it were, fascinated by its awful 
spell, so as almost to forget the remedy. This was not 
the case with himself. As you know, no man held more 
firmly to the objective reality of his religion — that it 
was founded upon fact. It was not the pole-star he lost 
sight of, or the compass he mistrusted ; it was the sea- 
worthiness of the vessel. His constitutional deficiency 
of hope, his sensibility to sin, made him not unfre- 
quently stand in doubt of himself, of his sincerity and 
safety before God, and sometimes made existence — 
the being obliged to continue to be — a doubtful priv- 
ilege. 

When oppressed with this feeling, — " the burden and 
the mystery of all this unintelligible world," the hurry 
of mankind out of this brief world into the unchange- 
able and endless next, — I have heard him, with deep 
feeling, repeat Andrew Marvel's strong lines : — 

" But at my back I always hear 
Time's winged chariots hurrying near; 
And yonder all before me lie 
Deserts of vast eternity." 

His living so much on books, and his strong personal 
attachment to men, as distinct from his adhesion to their 
principles and views, made him, as it were, live and com- 
mune with the dead — made him intimate, not merely 
with their thoughts, and the public events of their lives, 



MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 165 

but with themselves — Augustine, Milton, Luther, Me- 
lancthon, George Herbert, Baxter, Howe, Owen, Leigh- 
ton, Barrow, Bunyan, Philip and Matthew Henry, Dod- 
dridge, Defoe, Marvel, Locke, Berkeley, Halliburton, 
Cowper, Gray, Johnson, Gibbon, and David Hume, 1 
Jortin, Boston, Bengel, Neander, etc., not to speak of 
the apostles, and above all, his chief friend the author 
of the Epistle to the Romans, whom he looked on as 
the greatest of men, — with all these he had personal 
relations as men, he cordialized with them. He had 
thought much more about them — would have had more 
to say to them had they met, than about or to any but 
a very few living men. 2 He delighted to possess books 
which any of them might have held in their hands, on 

1 David Hume's Treatise on Human Nature he knew thoroughly, 
and read it carefully during his last illness. He used to say it not 
only was a miracle of intellectual and literary power for a man of 
twenty-eight, but contained the essence of all that was best on the 
philosophy of mind; " It's all there, if you will think it out." 

2 This tendency was curiously seen in his love of portraits, espec- 
ially of men whose works he had and liked. He often put portraits 
into his books, and he seemed to enjoy this way of realizing their au- 
thors ; and in exhibitions of pictures he was more taken up with what 
is usually and justly the most tiresome departments, the portraits, 
than with all else. He was not learned in engravings, and made no 
attempt at collecting them, so that the following list of portraits in his 
rooms shows his liking for the men much more than for the art which 
delineated them. Of course they by no means include all his friends, 
ancient and modern, but they all were his friends : — 

Robert Hall — Dr. Carey — Melancthon — Calvin — Pollok — 
Erasmus (very like "Uncle Ebenezer") — John Knox — Dr. Waugh 

— John Milton (three all framed) — Dr. Dick — Dr. Hall — Luther 
(two) — Dr. Heugh — Dr. Mitchell — Dr. Balmer — Dr. Henderson 

— Dr. Ward law — Shakspeare (a small oil painting which he had 
since ever I remember) — Dugald Stewart — Dr. Innes — Dr. Smith, 
Biggar — the two Erskines and Mr. Fisher — Dr. John Taylor of To- 
ronto — Dr. Chalmers — Mr. William Ellis — Rev. James Elles — 
J. B. Patterson — Yinet — Archibald M'Lean — Dr. John Erskine — 



166 MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 

which they had written their names. He had a num- 
ber of these, some very curious ; among others, that wild 
soldier, man of fashion and wit among the reformers, 
Ulric von Hiitten's autograph on Erasmus' beautiful 
folio Greek Testament, and John Howe's (spelt How) 
on the first edition of Milton's Speech on Unlicensed 
Printing. 1 He began collecting books when he was 

Tholuck — John Pym — Gesenius — Professor Finlayson — Richard 
Baxter — Dr. Lawson — Dr. Peddie (two, and a copy of Joseph's 
noble bust); and they were thus all about him for no other reason 
than that he liked to look at and think of them through their counte- 
nances. 

1 In a copy of Baxter's Life and Times, which he picked up at 
Maurice Ogle's shop in Glasgow, which had belonged to Anna, Coun- 
tess of Argyll, besides her autograph, there is a most affecting and 
interesting note in that venerable lady's handwriting. It occurs on 
the page where Baxter brings a charge of want of veracity against 
her eldest and name-daughter who was perverted to Popery. They 
are in a hand tremulous with age and feeling: — " I can say w* truth 
I neuer in all my lyff did hear hir ly, and what she said, if it was 
not trew, it was by others sugested to hir, as y l she wold embak on 
Wedensday. She belived she wold, bot thy took hir, alles ! from me 
who never did sie her mor. The minester of Cuper, Mr. John Magill, 
did sie hir at Paris in the convent. Said she was a knowing and ver- 
tuous person, and hed retined the living principels of our relidgon, 
which made him say it was good to grund young persons weel in ther 
relidgion, as she was one it appired weel grunded." 

The following is Lord Lindsay's letter, on seeing this remarkable 
marginal note : — 

Edinburgh, Douglas' Hotel, 
2Qth December 1856. 

My dear Sir, — I owe you my sincerest thanks for your kindness 
in favoring me with a sight of the volume of Baxter's Life, which 
formerly belonged to my ancestrix, Anna, Countess of Argyll. The 
MS. note inserted by her in it respecting her daughter is extremely in- 
teresting. I had always been under the impression that the daughter 
had died very shortly after her removal to France, but the contrary 
appears from Lady Argyll's memorandum. That memorandum throws 
also a pleasing light on the later life of Lady Anna, and forcibly illus- 
trates the undying love and tenderness of the aged mother, who must 



MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 167 

twelve, and he was collecting up to his last hours. He 
cared least for merely fine books, though he enjoyed, no 
one more so, fine type, good binding, and all the niceties 
of the book-fancier. What he liked were such books 
as were directly useful in his work, and such as he 
liked to live in the midst of; such, also, as illustrated 
any great philosophical, historical, or ecclesiastical epoch. 
His collection of Greek Testaments was, considering his 
means, of great extent and value, and he had a quite 
singular series of books, pamphlets, and documents, re- 
ferring not merely to his own body — the Secession, 
with all its subdivisions and reunions — but to Noncon- 
formity and Dissent everywhere, and, indeed, to human 
liberty, civil and religious, in every form, — for this, 
after the great truths, duties, and expectations of his faith, 
was the one master-passion of his life — liberty in its 
greatest sense, the largest extent of individual and public 
spontaneity consistent with virtue and safety. He was 
in this as intense, persistent in his devotion, as Sydney, 
Locke, or old Hollis. For instance, his admiration of 
Lord Macaulay as a writer and a man of letters, an ora- 
tor and a statesman, great as it was, was as nothing to 
his gratitude to him for having placed permanently on 
record, beyond all risk of obscuration or doubt, the doc- 
trine of 1688 — the right and power of the English 
people to be their own lawgivers, and to appoint their 
own magistrates, of whom the sovereign is the chief. 

have been very old when she penned it, the book having been printed 
as late as 1696. 

I am extremely obliged to you for communicating to me this new 
and very interesting information. — Believe me, my dear Sir, your 
much obliged and faithful servant, 

Lindsay. 

John Brown, Esq. M.D. 



168 MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 

His conviction of the sole right of God to be Lord of 
the conscience, and his sense of his own absolute relig- 
ious independence of every one but his Maker, were the 
two elements in building up his beliefs on all Church 
matters ; they were twin beliefs. Hence the simplicity 
and thoroughness of his principles. Sitting in the cen- 
tre, he commanded the circumference. But I am stray- 
ing out of my parish into yours. I only add to what 
you have said, that the longer he lived, the more did he 
insist upon it being not less true and not less important, 
that the Church must not intermeddle with the State, 
than that the State must not intermeddle with the 
Church. He used to say, " Go down into the world, 
with all its complications and confusions, with this doub- 
le-edged weapon, and you can cut all the composite 
knots of Church and State." The element of God and 
of eternity predominates in the religious more than in 
the civil affairs of men, and thus far transcends them ; 
but the principle of mutual independence is equally ap- 
plicable to each. All that statesmen, as such, have to 
do with religion, is to be themselves under its power; 
all that Christians, as such, have to do with the State, 
is to be good citizens. 

The fourth epoch of his personal life I would date 
from his second marriage. As I said before, no man 
was ever happier in his wives. They had much alike 
in nature, — only one could see the Divine wisdom of 
his first wife being his first, and his second his second ; 
each did best in her own place and time. His mar- 
riage with Miss Crum was a source of great happiness 
and good not only to himself, but to us his first chil- 
dren. She had been intimately known to us for many 
years, and was endeared to us long before we saw her, 



MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 169 

by her having been, as a child and girl, a great favorite 
of our own mother. The families of my grandfather 
Nimmo, and of the Crums, Evvings, and Maclaes, were 
very intimate. I have heard my father tell, that being 
out at Thornliebank with my mother, he asked her to 
take a walk with him to the Rouken, a romantic water- 
fall and glen up the burn. My mother thought they 
might take a Miss Margaret " with them, and so save 
appearances, and with Miss Crum, then a child of ten, 
holding my father's hand, away the three went ! 

So you may see that no one could be nearer to being 
our mother ; and she was curiously ingenious, and com- 
pletely successful in gaining our affection and regard. 
I have, as a boy, a peculiarly pleasant remembrance of 
her, having been at Thornliebank when about fourteen, 
and getting that impression of her gentle, kind, wise, 
calm, and happy nature — her entire lovableness — 
which it was our privilege to see ministering so much 
to my father's comfort. That fortnight in 1824 or 1825 
is still to me like the memory of some happy dream ; 
the old library, the big chair in which I huddled myself 
up for hours with the New Arabian Nights, and all 
the old-fashioned and unforgotten books I found there, 
the ample old garden, the wonders of machinery and 
skill going on in " the works," the large water-wheel 
going its stately rounds in the midst of its own dark- 
ness, the petrifactions I excavated in the bed of the 
burn, ammonites, etc., and brought home to my mu- 
seum (!) ; the hospitable lady of the house, my here- 
ditary friend, dignified, anxious and kind ; and above 
all, her only daughter who made me a sort of pet, and 
was always contriving some unexpected pleasure, — all 
this feels to me even now like something out of a book. 



170 MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 

My father's union with Miss Crum was not only one 
of the best blessings of his life, — it made him more 
of a blessing to others, than it is likely he would other- 
wise have been. By her cheerful, gracious ways, her 
love for society as distinguished from company, her gift 
of making every one happy and at ease when with her, 
and her tender compassion for all suffering, she in a 
measure won my father from himself and his books, to 
his own great good, and to the delight and benefit of us 
all. It was like sunshine and a glad sound in the house. 
She succeeded in what is called " drawing out " the in- 
veterate solitary. Moreover, she encouraged and enabled 
him to give up a moiety of his ministerial labors, and 
thus to devote himself to the great work of his later 
years, the preparing for and giving to the press the 
results of his life's study of God's Word. We owe 
entirely to her that immense armamentarium libertatis, 
the third edition of his treatise on Civil Obedience. 

One other source of great happiness to my father by 
this marriage was the intercourse he had with the family 
at Thornliebank, deepened and endeared as this was by 
her unexpected and irreparable loss. But on this I must 
not enlarge, nor on that death itself, the last thing in the 
world he ever feared — leaving him once more, after a 
brief happiness, and when he had still more reason to 
hope that he would have " grown old with her, leaning 
on her faithful bosom." The urn was again empty — 
and the only word was vale ! he was once more viduus, 
bereft. 

" God gives us love ; something to love 
He lends us ; but, when love is grown 
To ripeness, that on which it throve 

Falls off, and love is left alone. 
This is the curse of time " — 



MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 171 

But Still — 

" 'Tis better to have loved and lost, 
Than never to have loved at all." 

It was no easy matter to get him from home and away 
from his books. But once off, he always enjoyed him- 
self, — especially in his visits to Thornliebank, Busby, 
Crofthead, Biggar, and Melrose. He was very fond of 
preaching on these occasions, and his services were 
always peculiarly impressive. He spoke more slowly 
and with less vehemence than in his own pulpit, and, 
as I often told him, with all the more effect. When 
driving about Biggar, or in the neighborhood of Langrig, 
he was full of the past, showing how keenly, with all his 
outward reserve, he had observed and felt. He had a 
quite peculiar interest in his three flocks, keeping his 
eye on all their members, through long years of ab- 
sence. 

His love for his people and for his " body " was 
a special love ; and his knowledge of the Secession, 
through all its manv divisions and unions, — his knowl- 
edge, not only of its public history, with its immense 
controversial and occasional literature, but of the lives 
and peculiarities of its ministers, — was of the most 
minute and curious kind. He loved all mankind, and 
specially such as were of " the household of faith ; " and 
he longed for the time when, as there was one Shepherd, 
there would be but one sheepfold ; but he gloried in being 
not only a Seceder, but Burgher; and he often said, 
that take them all in all, he knew no body of profess- 
ing Christians in any country or in any time, worthier 
of all honor than that which was founded by the Four 
Brethren, not only as God-fearing, God-serving men, but 
as members of civil society ; men who on every occasion 



172 MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 

were found on the side of liberty and order, truth and 
justice. He used to say he believed there was hardly 
a Tory in the Synod, and that no one but He whose 
service is perfect freedom, knew the public good done, 
and the public evil averted, by the lives and the prin- 
ciples, and when need was, by the votes of such men, 
all of whom were in the working classes, or in the lower 
half of the middle. The great Whig leaders knew this, 
and could always depend on the Seceders. 

There is no worthy portrait of my father in his prime. 
I believe no man was ever more victimized in the way 
of being asked to " sit ; " indeed, it was probably from 
so many of them being of this kind, that the opportunity 
of securing a really good one was lost. The best — the 
one portrait of his habitual expression — is Mr. Har- 
vey's, done for Mr. Crum of Busby : it was taken when 
he was failing, but it is an excellent likeness as well as 
a noble picture ; such a picture as one would buy with- 
out knowing anything of the subject. So true it is, 
that imaginative painters, men gifted and accustomed to 
render their own ideal conceptions in form and color, 
grasp and impress on their canvas the features of real 
men more to the quick, more faithfully as to the cen- 
tral qualities of the man, than professed portrait pain- 
ters. 

Steell's bust is beautiful, but it is wanting in expres- 
sion. Slater's, though rude, is better. Angus Fletcher's 
has much of his air, but is too much like a Grecian God. 
There is a miniature by Mrs. Robertson of London, be- 
longing to my sister, Mrs. Young, which I always liked, 
though more like a gay, brilliant French Abbe, than the 
Seceder minister of Rose Street, as he then was. It 
gives, however, more of his exquisite brightness and 



MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 173 

spirit, the dancing light in his dark eyes, and his smile, 
when pleased and desiring to please, than any other. I 
have a drawing by Mr. Harvey, done from my father for 
his picture of the Minister's Visit, which I value very 
much, as giving the force and depth, the momentum, so 
to speak, of his serious look. He is sitting in a cottar's 
house, reading the Bible to an old bedridden woman, 
the farm servants gathered round to get his word. 

Mungo Burton painted a good portrait which my 
brother William has ; from his being drawn in a black 
neckcloth, and standing, he looks as he sometimes did, 
more like a member of Parliament than a clergyman. 
The print from this is good and very scarce. Of photo- 
graphs, I like D. O. Hill's best, in which he is repre- 
sented as shaking hands with the (invisible) Free Church 
— it is full of his earnest, cordial power ; that by Tunny, 
from which the beautiful engraving by Lumb Stocks in 
the Memoir was taken, is very like what he was about 
a year and a half before his death. All the other por- 
traits, as far as I can remember, are worthless and worse, 
missing entirely the true expression. He was very dif- 
ficult to take, partly because he was so full of what may 
be called spiritual beauty, evanescent, ever changing, and 
requiring the highest kind of genius to fix it ; and partly 
from his own fault, for he thought it was necessary to be 
lively, or rather to try to be so to his volunteering artist, 
and the consequence was, his giving them, as his habitual 
expression, one which was rare, and in this particular 
case more made than born. 

The time when I would have liked his look to have 
been perpetuated, was that of all others the least likely, 
or indeed possible ; — it was, when after administering 
the Sacrament to his people, and having solemnized 



174 MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 

every one, and been himself profoundly moved by that 
Divine, everlasting memorial, he left the elders' seat and 
returned to the pulpit, and after giving out the psalm, 
sat down wearied and satisfied, filled with devout grati- 
tude to his Master — his face pale, and his dark eyes 
looking out upon us all, his whole countenance radiant 
and subdued. Any likeness of him in this state, more 
like that of the proto-martyr, when his face was as that 
of an angel, than anything I ever beheld, would have 
made one feel what it is so impossible otherwise to con- 
vey, — the mingled sweetness, dignity, and beauty of his 
face. When it was winter, and the church darkening, 
and the lights at the pulpit were lighted so as to fall 
upon his face and throw the rest of the vast assemblage 
into deeper shadow, the effect of his countenance was 
something never to forget. 

He was more a man of power than of genius in the 
ordinary sense. His imagination was not a primary 
power ; it was not originative, though in a quite un- 
common degree receptive, having the capacity of realiz- 
ing the imaginations of others, and through them body- 
ing forth the unseen. When exalted and urged by the 
understanding, and heated by the affections, it burst out 
with great force, but always as servant, not master. 
But if he had no one faculty that might be, to use the 
loose words of common speech, original, he was so as a 
whole, — such a man as stood alone. No one ever mis- 
took his look, or would, had they been blind, have mis 
taken his voice or words, for those of any one else, or 
any one else's for his. 

His mental characteristics, if I may venture on such 

ground, were clearness and vigor, intensity, fervor, 1 con- 

1 This earnestness of nature pervaded all his exercises. A man of 



MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 175 

centration, penetration, and perseverance, — more of 
depth than width. 1 The moral conditions under which 

great capacity and culture, with a head like Benjamin Franklin's, an 
avowed unbeliever in Christianity, came every Sunday afternoon, for 
many years, to hear him. I remember his look well, as if interested, 
but not impressed. He was often asked by his friends why he went 
when he didn't believe one word of what he heard. "Neither I do, 
but I like to hear and to see a man earnest once a week, about any- 
thing." It is related of David Hume, that having heard my great- 
grandfather preach, he said, "That's the man for me, he means what 
he says, he speaks as if Jesus Christ was at his elbow." 

1 The following note from the pen to which we owe " St. Paul's 
Thorn in the Flesh " is admirable, both for its reference to my father, 
and its own beauty and truth. 

" One instance of his imperfect discernment of associations of 
thought that were not of a purely logical character was afforded, we 
used to think, by the decided and almost contemptuous manner in 
which he always rejected the theory of what is called the double in- 
terpretation of prophecy. This, of course, is not the place to discuss 
whether he was absolutely right or wrong in his opinion. The sub- 
ject, however, is one of somewhat curious interest, and it has also a 
strictly literary as well as a theological aspect, and what w r e have to 
say about it shall relate exclusively to the former. When Dr. Brown 
then said, as he was accustomed in his strong way to do, that 'if 
prophecy was capable of two senses, it was impossible it could have 
any sense at all,' it is plain, we think, that he forgot the specific char- 
acter of prophetic literature, viz., its being in the highest degree poetic. 
Now every one knows that poetry of a very elevated cast almost in- 
variably possesses great breadth, variety, we may say multiplicity of 
meaning. Its very excellence consists in its being capable of two> 
three, or many meanings and applications. Take, for example, these 
familiar lines in the ' Midsummer Night's Dream : ' — 

' Ah me ! for aught that ever I could read, 
Could ever hear by tale or history, 
The course of true love never did run smooth : 
But either it was different in blood, 
Or else misgraffed in respect of years, 
Or else it stood upon the choice of friends ; 
Or if there were a sympathy in choice, 
War, death, or sickness did lay siege to it, 
Making it momentary as a sound, 
Swift as a shadow, short as any dream, 



176 MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 

he lived were the love, the pursuit, and the practice of 
truth in everything ; strength and depth, rather than ex- 
ternal warmth of affection ; fidelity to principles and to 
friends. He used often to speak of the moral obligation 
laid upon every man to think truly, as well as to speak 
and act truly, and said that much intellectual demoraliza- 
tion and ruin resulted from neglecting this. He was 
absolutely tolerant of all difference of opinion, so that it 
was sincere ; and this was all the more remarkable from 
his being the opposite of an indifferentist, being very 
strong in his own convictions, holding them keenly, even 

Brief as the lightning in the collied night, 
That in a spleen unfolds both heaven and earth, 
And ere a man hath power to say " Behold ! " 
The jaws of darkness do devour it up ; 
So quick bright things come to confusion.' 

We remember once quoting these lines to a lady, and being rather 
taken aback by her remark, ' They are very beautiful, but I don't 
think they are true.' We really had forgot for the moment the 
straightforward, matter-of-fact sense of which they are capable, and 
were not adverting to the possibility of their being understood to 
mean that — nothing but love-crosses are going, and that no tolerable 
amount of comfort or happiness is to be found in the life matrimonial. 
or in any of the approaches towards it. Every intelligent student of 
Shakspeare's, however, will at once feel that the poet's mind speedily 
passes away from the idea with which he starts, and becomes merged 
in a far wider theme, viz., in the disenchantment to which all lofty 
imaginations are liable, the disappointment to which all extravagant 
earthly hopes and wishes are doomed. This, in fact, is distinctly ex- 
pressed in the last line, and in this sense alone can the words be re- 
garded as at all touching or impressive. Sudden expansions and 
transitions of thought, then, are nothing more than what is common 
to all poetry; and when we find the Hebrew bards, in their prophetic 
songs, mingling in the closest conjunction the anticipations of the 
glories of Solomon's reign, or the happy prospects of a return from 
Babylon, with the higher glory and happiness of Messiah's advent, 
such transitions of thought are in perfect accordance with the ordinary 
laws of poetry, and ought not to perplex even the most unimaginative 
student of the Bible." 



MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 177 

passionately, while from the structure of his mind, he 
was somehow deficient in comprehending, much less of 
sympathizing with the opinions of men who greatly dif- 
fered from him. This made his homage to entire free- 
dom of thought all the more genuine and rare. In the 
region of theological thought he was scientific, systematic, 
and authoritative, rather than philosophical and specula- 
tive. He held so strongly that the Christian religion 
was mainly a religion of facts, that he perhaps allowed 
too little to its also being a philosophy that was ready 
to meet, out of its own essence and its ever unfolding 
powers, any new form of unbelief, disbelief, or misbelief, 
and must front itself to them as they moved up. 

With devotional feeling — with everything that showed 
reverence and godly fear — he cordialized wherever and 
in whomsoever it was found, — Pagan or Christian, Ro- 
manist or Protestant, bond or free ; and while he dis- 
liked, and had indeed a positive antipathy to intellectual 
mysticism, he had a great knowledge of and relish for 
such writers as Dr. Henry More, Culverwel, Scougall, 
Madame Guyon, whom (besides their other qualities) 
I may perhaps be allowed to call affectionate mystics, 
and for such poets as Herbert and Vaughan, whose 
poetry was pious, and their piety poetic. As I have 
said, he was perhaps too impatient of all obscure think- 
ing, from not considering that on certain subjects, neces- 
sarily in their substance, and on the skirts of all subjects, 
obscurity and vagueness, difficulty and uncertainty, are 
inherent, and must therefore appear in their treatment. 
Men who rejoiced in making clear things obscure, and 
plain things the reverse, he could not abide, and spoke 
with some contempt of those who were original merely 
from their standing on their heads, and tall from walk- 
12 



178 MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 

ing upon stilts. As you have truly said, his character 
mellowed and toned down in his later years, without 
in any w r ay losing its own individuality, and its clear, 
vigorous, unflinching perception of and addiction to prin- 
ciples. 

His affectionate ways with his students were often 
very curious : he contrived to get at their hearts, and 
find out all their family and local specialities, in a sort 
of short-hand way, and he never forgot them in after- 
life ; and watching him with them at tea, speaking his 
mind freely and often jocularly upon all sorts of subjects, 
one got a glimpse of that union of opposites which made 
him so much what he was — he gave out far more lib- 
erally to them the riches of his learning and the deep 
thoughts of his heart, than he ever did among his full- 
grown brethren. It was like the flush of an Arctic sum- 
mer, blossoming all over, out of and into the stillness, 
the loneliness, and the chill rigor of winter. Though 
authoritative in his class without any effort, he was in- 
dulgent to everything but conceit, slovenliness of mind 
and body, irreverence, and above all handling the Word 
of God deceitfully. On one occasion a student having 
delivered in the Hall a discourse tinged with Armin- 
ianism, he said, " That may be the gospel according to 
Dr. Macknight, or the gospel according to Dr. Taylor 
of Norwich, but it is not the gospel according to the 
Apostle Paul ; and if I thought the sentiments expressed 
were his own, if I had not thought he has taken his 
thoughts from commentators without carefully consider- 
ing them, I would think it my duty to him and to the 
church to make him no longer a student of divinity 
here." He was often unconsciously severe, from his 
saying exactly what he felt. On a student's ending 



MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 179 

his discourse, his only criticism was, " The strongest 
characteristic of this discourse is weakness," and feel- 
ing that this was really all he had to say, he ended. 
A young gentleman on very good terms with himself, 
stood up to pray with his hands in his pockets, and 
among other things he put up a petition he might " be 
delivered from the fear of man, which bringeth a snare ; " 
my father's only remark was that there was part of his 
prayer which seemed to be granted before it was asked. 
But he was always unwilling to criticize prayer, feeling 
it to be too sacred, and, as it were, beyond his province, 
except to deliver the true principles of all prayer, which 
he used to say were admirably given in the Shorter Cat- 
echism — " Prayer is an offering up of the desires of 
the heart to God, for things agreeable to his will, in the 
name of Christ ; with confession of our sins, and thank- 
ful acknowledgment of his mercies." 

For the " heroic " old man of Haddington my father 
had a peculiar reverence, as indeed we all have — as well 
we may. He was our king, the founder of our dynasty ; 
we dated from him, and he was " hedged " accordingly 
by a certain sacredness or " divinity." I well remember 
with what surprise and pride I found myself asked by 
a blacksmith's wife in a remote hamlet among the hop- 
gardens of Kent, if I was "the son of the Self-inter- 
preting Bible." I possess, as an heirloom, the New Tes- 
tament which my father fondly regarded as the one his 
grandfather, when a herd laddie, got from the Professor 
who heard him ask for it, and promised him it if he 
could read a verse ; and he has in his beautiful small 
hand written in it what follows : " He (John Brown of 
Haddington) had now acquired so much of Greek as 
encouraged him to hope that he might at length be 



180 MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 

prepared to reap the richest of all rewards which classi- 
cal learning could confer on him, the capacity of reading 
in the original tongue the blessed New Testament of 
our Lord and Saviour. Full of this hope, he became 
anxious to possess a copy of the invaluable volume. One 
night, having committed the charge of his sheep to a 
companion, he set out on a midnight journey to St. 
Andrews, a distance of twenty-four miles. He reached 
his destination in the morning, and went to the book- 
seller's shop asking for a copy of the Greek New Tes- 
tament. The master of the shop, surprised at such a 
request from a shepherd boy, was disposed to make game 
of him. Some of the professors coming into the shop 
questioned the lad about his employment and studies. 
After hearing his tale, one of them desired the book- 
seller to bring the volume. He did so, and drawing it 
down, said, ' Boy, read this, and you shall have it for 
nothing.' The boy did so, acquitted himself to the ad- 
miration of his judges, and carried off his Testament, 
and when the evening arrived, was studying it in the 
midst of his flock on the braes of Abernethy." — Me- 
moir of Rev. John Brown of Haddington, by Rev. J. B. 
Patterson. 

" There is reason to believe this is the New Testa- 
ment referred to. The name on the opposite page was 
written on the fly-leaf. It is obviously the writing of 
a boy, and bears a resemblance to Mr. Brown's hand- 
writing in mature life. It is imperfect, wanting a great 
part of the Gospel of Matthew. The autograph at 
the end is that of his son, Thomas, when a youth at 
college, afterwards Rev. Dr. Thomas Brown of Dal- 
keith. — J. B." 

I doubt not my father regarded this little worn old 



MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 181 

book, the sword of the Spirit which his ancestor so nobly 
won, and wore, and warred with, with not less honest 
veneration and pride than does his dear friend James 
Douglas of Cavers the Percy pennon borne away at 
Otterbourne. When I read, in Uncle William's admi- 
rable Life of his father, his own simple story of his 
early life — his loss of father and mother before he 
was eleven, his discovering (as true a discovery as Dr. 
Young's of the characters of the Rosetta stone, or Raw- 
linson's of the cuneiform letters) the Greek characters, 
his defence of himself against the astonishing and base 
charge of getting his learning from the devil (that shrewd 
personage would not have employed him on the Greek 
Testament), his eager, indomitable study, his running 
miles to and back again to hear a sermon after folding 
his sheep at noon, his keeping his family creditably on 
never more than £50, and for long on £40 a year, giving 
largely in charity, and never wanting, as he said, " lying 
money " — when I think of all this, I feel what a strong, 
independent, manly nature he must have had. We all 
know his saintly character, his devotion to learning, and 
to the work of preaching and teaching; but he seems 
to have been, like most complete men, full of humor 
and keen wit. Some of his snell sayings are still re- 
membered. A lad of an excitable temperament waited 
on him, and informed him he wished to be a preacher 
of the gospel. My great-grandfather, finding him as 
weak in intellect as he w T as strong in conceit, advised 
him to continue in his present vocation. The young 
man said, " But I wish to preach and glorify God." 
" My young friend, a man may glorify God making 
broom besoms ; stick to your trade, and glorify God by 
your walk and conversation." 



182 MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 

The late Dr. Husband of Dunfermline called on him 
when he was preparing to set out for GifFord, and was 
beginning to ask him some questions as to the place 
grace held in the Divine economy. " Come away wi' 
me, and I'll expound that ; but when I'm speaking, look 
you after my feet." They got upon a rough bit of com- 
mon, and the eager and full-minded old man was in the 
midst of his unfolding the Divine scheme, and his stu- 
dent was drinking in his words, and forgetting his part 
of the bargain. His master stumbled and fell, and get- 
ting up, somewhat sharply said, " James, the grace o' 
God can do much, but it canna gi'e a man common 
sense ; " which is as good theology as sense. 

A scoffing blacksmith seeing him jogging up to a 
house near the smithy on his pony, which was halting, 
said to him, " Mr. Brown, ye're in the Scripture line the 
day — ' the legs o' the lame are not equal.' " " So is a 
parable in the mouth of a fool." 

On his coming to Haddington, there was one man who 
held out against his " call." Mr. Brown meeting him when 
they could not avoid each other, the non-content said, " Ye 
see, sir, I canna say what I dinna think, and I think 
ye're ower young and inexperienced for this charge." 
" So I think too, David, but it would never do for you 
and me to gang in the face o' the hale congregation ! " 

The following is a singular illustration of the prevail- 
ing dark and severe tone of the religious teaching of 
that time, and also of its strength : — A poor old woman, 
of great worth and excellent understanding, in whose 
conversation Mr. Brown took much pleasure, was on her 
death-bed. Wishing to try her faith, he said to her, 
" Janet, what would you say if, after all He has done 
for you, God should let you drop into hell ? " " E'en's 



MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 183 

(even as) he likes ; if lie does, He'll lose mair than Til 
do" There is something not less than sublime in this 
reply. 

Than my grandfather and " Uncle Ebenezer," no two 
brothers could be more different in nature or more united 
in affection. My grandfather was a man of great natu- 
ral good sense, well read and well knowledged, easy but 
not indolent, never overflowing but never empty, homely 
but dignified, and fuller of love to all sentient creatures 
than any other human being I ever knew. I had, when 
a boy of ten, two rabbits, Oscar and Livia : why so 
named is a secret I have lost ; perhaps it was an Ossi- 
anic union of the Roman with the Gael. Oscar was a 
broad-nosed, manly, rather brusque husband, who used to 
snort when angry, and bite too ; Livia was a thin-faced, 
meek, and I fear, deceitfullish wife, who could smile, and 
then bite. One evening I had lifted both these worthies, 
by the ears of course, and was taking them from their 
clover to their beds, when my grandfather, who had been 
walking out in the cool of the evening, met me. I had 
just kissed the two creatures, out of mingled love to 
them, and pleasure at having caught them without much 
trouble. He took me by the chin, and kissed me, and 
then Oscar and Livia I Wonderful man, I thought, and 
still think ! doubtless he had seen me in my private fond- 
ness, and wished to please me. 

He was forever doing good in his quiet yet earnest way. 
Not only on Sunday when he preached solid gospel ser- 
mons, full of quaint familiar expressions, such as I fear 
few of my readers could take up, full of solemn, affec- 
tionate appeals, full of his own simplicity and love, the 
Monday also found him ready with his every-day gospel. 
If he met a drover from Lochaber who had crossed the 



184 MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 

Campsie Hills, and was making across Carnwath Moor 
to the Calstane Slap, and thence into England by the 
drove-rode, he accosted him with a friendly smile, — 
gave him a reasonable tract, and dropped into him some 
words of Divine truth. He was thus continually doing 
good. Go where he might, he had his message to every 
one ; to a servant lass, to a poor wanderer on the bleak 
streets, to gentle and simple — he flowed forever pleno 
rivo. 

Uncle Ebenezer, on the other hand, flowed per saltum ; 
he was always good and saintly, but he was great once a 
week ; six days he brooded over his message, was silent, 
withdrawn, self-involved ; on the Sabbath, that downcast, 
almost timid man, who shunned men, the instant he was 
in the pulpit, stood up a son of thunder. Such a voice ! 
such a piercing eye ! such an inevitable forefinger, held 
out trembling with the terrors of the Lord ; such a 
power of asking questions and letting them fall deep 
into the hearts of his hearers, and then answering them 
himself, with an " ah, sirs ! " that thrilled and quivered 
from him to them. 

I remember his astonishing us all with a sudden burst. 
It was a sermon upon the apparent plus of evil in this 
world, and he had driven himself and us all to despair — 
so much sin, so much misery — when, taking advantage 
of the chapter he had read, the account of the uproar at 
Ephesus in the Theatre, he said, " Ah> sirs ! what if 
some of the men who, for ' about the space of two 
hours,' cried out, ' Great is Diana of the Ephesians,' 
have for the space of eighteen hundred years and more 
been crying day and night, i Great and marvellous are 
thy works, Lord God Almighty ; just and true are 
all thy ways, thou King of saints ; who shall not fear 



MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 185 

thee, O Lord, and glorify thy name ? for thou only art 
holy.' " 

You have doubtless heard of the story of Lord 
Brougham going to hear him. It is very characteris- 
tic, and as I had it from Mrs. Cuninghame, who was 
present, I may be allowed to tell it. Brougham and 
Denman were on a visit to James Stuart of Dunearn, 
about the time of the Queen's trial. They had asked 
Stuart where they should go to church ; he said he 
would take them to a Seceder minister at Inverkeith- 
ing. They went, and as Mr. Stuart had described the 
saintly old man, Brougham said he would like to be in- 
troduced to him, and arriving before service time, Mr. 
Stuart called, and left a message that some gentlemen 
wished to see him. The answer was that " Maister " 
Brown saw nobody before divine worship. He then 
sent in Brougham and Denman's names. " Mr. Brown's 
compliments to Mr. Stuart, and he sees nobody before 
sermon," and in a few minutes out came the stooping 
shy old man, and passed them, unconscious of their pres- 
ence. They sat in the front gallery, and he preached a 
faithful sermon, full of fire and of native force. They 
came away greatly moved, and each wrote to Lord 
Jeffrey to lose not a week in coming to hear the greatest 
natural orator they had ever heard. Jeffrey came next 
Sunday, and often after declared he never heard such 
words, such a sacred, untaught gift of speech. Nothing 
was more beautiful than my father's admiration and emo- 
tion when listening to his uncle's rapt passages, or than 
his childlike faith in my father's exegetical prowess. He 
used to have a list of difficult passages ready for " my 
nephew," and the moment the oracle gave a decision, the 
old man asked him to repeat it, and then took a perma- 



186 MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 

nent note of it, and would assuredly preach it some day 
with his own proper unction and power. One story of 
him I must give ; my father, who heard it not long be- 
fore his own death, was delighted with it, and for some 
days repeated it to every one. Uncle Ebenezer, with all 
his mildness and general complaisance, was, like most of 
the Browns, tenax propositi, firm to obstinacy. He had 
established a week-day sermon at the North Ferry, about 
two miles from his own town, Inverkeithing. It was, I 
think, on the Tuesdays. It was winter, and a wild, drift- 
ing, and dangerous day ; his daughters — his wife was 
dead — besought him not to go ; he smiled vaguely, but 
continued getting into his big-coat. Nothing would stay 
him, and away he and the pony stumbled through the 
dumb and blinding snow. He was half-way on his jour- 
ney, and had got into the sermon he was going to preach, 
and was utterly insensible to the outward storm : his 
pony getting its feet balled, staggered about, and at last 
upset his master and himself into the ditch at the road- 
side. The feeble, heedless, rapt old man might have 
perished there, had not some carters, bringing up whisky 
casks from the Ferry, seen the catastrophe, and rushed 
up, raising him, and dichtirC him, with much commisera- 
tion and blunt speech — " Puir auld man, what brocht 
ye here in sic a day ? " There they were, a rough crew, 
surrounding the saintly man, some putting on his hat, 
sorting and cheering him, and others knocking the balls 
off the pony's feet, and stuffing them with grease. He 
was most polite and grateful, and one of these cordial 
ruffians having pierced a cask, brought him a horn of 
whisky, and said, " Tak that, it '11 hearten ye." He took 
the horn, and bowing to them, said, " Sirs, let us give 
thanks ! " and there, by the road-side, in the drift and 



MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 187 

storm, with these wild fellows, he asked a blessing on it, 
and for his kind deliverers, and took a tasting of the 
horn. The men cried like children. They lifted him 
on his pony, one going with him, and when the rest 
arrived in Inverkeithing, they repeated the story to every- 
body, and broke down in tears whenever they came to 
the blessing. "And to think o' askin' a blessin' on a 
tass o' whisky ! " Next Presbytery day, after the or- 
dinary business was over, he rose up — he seldom spoke 
— and said, " Moderator, I have something personal to 
myself to say. I have often said, that real kindness 
belongs only to true Christians, but " — and then he 
told the story of these men ; a but more true kindness 
I never experienced than from these lads. They may 
have had the grace of God, I don't know ; but I never 
mean again to be so positive in speaking of this matter." 
When he was on a missionary tour in the north, he 
one morning met a band of Highland shearers on their 
way to the harvest ; he asked them to stop and hear the 
word of God. They said they could not, as they had 
their wages to work for. He offered them what they 
said they would lose ; to this they agreed, and he paid 
them, and closing his eyes engaged in prayer ; when he 
had ended, he looked up, and his congregation had van- 
ished ! His shrewd brother Thomas, to whom he com- 
plained of this faithlessness, said, " Eben, the next time 
ye pay folk to hear you preach, keep your eyes open, 
and pay them when you are done." I remember, on 
another occasion, in Bristo Church, with an immense 
audience, he had been going over the Scripture accounts 
of great sinners repenting and turning to God, repeat- 
ing their names, from Manasseh onwards. He seemed 
to have closed the record, when, fixing his eyes on the 



188 MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 

end of the central passage, he called out abruptly, " I 
see a man ! " Every one looked to that point — "I see 
a man of Tarsus ; and he says, Make mention of me ! " 
It must not be supposed that the discourses of " Uncle 
Ebenezer," with these abrupt appeals and sudden starts, 
were unwritten or extempore ; they were carefully com- 
posed and written out, — only these flashes of thought 
and passion came on him suddenly when writing, and 
were therefore quite natural when delivered — they 
came on him again. 

The Rev. John Belfrage, M. D., had more power over 
my father's actions and his relations to the world, than 
any other of his friends : over his thoughts and con- 
victions proper, not much, — few living men had, and 
even among the mighty dead, he called no man master. 
He used to say that the three master intellects devoted 
to the study of divine truth since the apostles, were 
Augustine, Calvin, and Jonathan Edwards ; but that even 
they were only primi inter pares, — this by the bye. 

On all that concerned his outward life as a public 
teacher, as a father, and as a member of society, he con- 
sulted Dr. Belfrage, and was swayed greatly by his judg- 
ment, as, for instance, the choice of a profession for my- 
self, his second marriage, etc. He knew him to be his 
true friend, and not only wise and honest, but preemi- 
nently a man of affairs, capax rerum. Dr. Belfrage was 
a great man in posse, if ever I saw one, — u a village 
Hampden." Greatness was of his essence ; nothing paltry, 
nothing secondary, nothing untrue. Large in body, large 
and handsome in face, lofty in manner to his equals or 
superiors ; 1 homely, familiar, cordial with the young and 

1 On one occasion, Mr. Hall of Kelso, an excellent but very odd 
man, in whom the ego was very strong, and who, if he had been a 



MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 189 

the poor, — I never met with a more truly royal nature 
— more native and endued to rule, guide, and benefit 
mankind. He was forever scheming for the good of 
others, and chiefly in the way of helping them to help 
themselves. From a curious want of ambition — his 
desire for advancement was for that of his friends, not 
for his own, and here he was ambitious and zealous 
enough, — from non-concentration of his faculties in early 
life, and from an affection of the heart which ultimately 
killed him — it was too big for his body, and, under the 
relentless hydrostatic law, at last shattered the taber- 
nacle it moved, like a steam-engine too powerful for the 
vessel it finds itself in, — his mental heart also was too 
big for his happiness, — from these causes, along with 
a love for gardening, which was a passion, and an in- 
herited competency, which took away what John Hunter 
calls " the stimulus of necessity," you may understand 
how this remarkable man — instead of being a Prime 
Minister, a Lord Chancellor, or a Dr. Gregory, a George 
Stephenson, or likeliest of all, a John Howard, with- 
out some of his weaknesses, lived and died minister of 
the small congregation of Slateford, near Edinburgh. 
It is also true that he was a physician, and an energetic 
and successful one, and got rid of some of his love of 
doing good to and managing human beings in this 
way ; he was also an oracle in his district, to whom 
many had the wisdom to go to take as well as ask 
advice, and who was never weary of entering into the 
most minute details, and taking endless pains, being 

Spaniard, would, to adopt Coleridge's story, have taken off or touched 
his hat whenever he spoke of himself, met Dr. Belfrage in the lobby 
of the Synod, and drawing himself up as he passed, he muttered, 
"high and michty! " " There's a pair of us, Mr. Hall." 



190 MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 

like Dr. Chalmers a strong believer in "the power of 
littles." It would be out of place, though it would be 
not uninteresting, to tell how this great resident power 
— this strong will and authority, this capacious, clear, 
and beneficent intellect — dwelt in its petty sphere, like 
an oak in a flower-pot ; but I cannot help recalling that 
signal act of friendship and of power in the matter of 
my father's translation from Rose Street to B rough ton 
Place, to which you have referred. 

It was one of the turning-points of my father's history. 
Dr. Belfrage, though seldom a speaker in the public 
courts of his church, was always watchful of the inter- 
ests of the people and of his friends. On the Rose Street 
question he had from the beginning formed a strong 
opinion. My father had made his statement, indicating 
his leaning, but leaving himself absolutely in the hands 
of the Synod. There was some speaking, all on one 
side, and for a time the Synod seemed to incline to be 
absolute, and refuse the call of Broughton Place. The 
house was everywhere crowded, and breathless with in- 
terest, my father sitting motionless, anxious, and pale, 
prepared to submit without a word, but retaining his 
own mind ; everything looked like a unanimous decision 
for Rose Street, when Dr. Belfrage rose up and came 
forward into the " passage," and with his first sentence 
and look, took possession of the house. He stated, with 
clear and simple argument, the truth and reason of the 
case ; and then having fixed himself there, he took up the 
personal interests and feelings of his friend, and put- 
ting before them what they were about to do in send- 
ing back my father, closed with a burst of indignant 
appeal — "I ask you now, not as Christians, I ask you 
as gentlemen, are you prepared to do this ? " Every 



MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 191 

one felt it was settled, and so it was. My father never 
forgot this great act of his friend. 

This remarkable man, inferior to my father in learn- 
ing, in intensity, in compactness and in power of — so 
to speak — focussing himself, — admiring his keen elo- 
quence, his devotedness to his sacred art, rejoicing in 
his fame, jealous of his honor — was, by reason of his 
own massive understanding, his warm and great heart, 
and his instinctive knowledge of men, my father's most 
valued friend, for he knew best and most of what my 
father knew least ; and on his death, my father said 
he felt himself thus far unprotected and unsafe. He 
died at Rothesay of hypertrophy of the heart. I had 
the sad privilege of being with him to the last ; and 
any nobler spectacle of tender, generous affection, high 
courage, child-like submission to the Supreme Will, and 
of magnanimity in its true sense, I do not again expect 
to see. On the morning of his death he said to me, 
" John, come and tell me honestly how this is to end ; 
tell me the last symptoms in their sequence." I knew 
the man, and was honest, and told him all I knew. " Is 
there any chance of stupor or delirium ? " "I think not. 
Death (to take Bichat's division) will begin at the heart 
itself, and you will die conscious." " I am glad of that. 
It was Samuel Johnson, wasn't it, who wished not to die 
unconscious, that he might enter the eternal world with 
his mind unclouded ; but you know, John, that was 
physiological nonsense. We leave the brain, and all 
this ruined body, behind ; but I would like to be in 
my senses when I take my last look of this wonderful 
world," looking across the still sea towards the Argyle- 
shire hills, lying in the light of sunrise, " and of my 
friends — of you," fixing his eyes on a faithful friend 



192 MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 

and myself. And it was so; in less than an hour he 
was dead, sitting erect in his chair — his disease had 
for weeks prevented him from lying down, — all the 
dignity, simplicity, and benignity of its master resting 
upon, and, as it were, supporting that " ruin/' which he 
had left. 

I cannot end this tribute to my father's friend and 
mine, and my own dear and earliest friend's father, 
without recording one of the most extraordinary in- 
stances of the power of will, under the pressure of 
affection, I ever witnessed or heard of. Dr. Belfrage 
was twice married. His second wife was a woman of 
great sweetness and delicacy, not only of mind, but, to 
his sorrow, of constitution. She died, after less than a 
year of singular and unbroken happiness. There was 
no portrait of her. He resolved there should be one ; 
and though utterly ignorant of drawing, he determined 
to do it himself. No one else could have such a per- 
fect image of her in his mind, and he resolved to re- 
alize this image. He got the materials for miniature 
painting, and, I think, eight prepared ivory plates. He 
then shut himself up from every one, and from every- 
thing, for fourteen days, and came out of his room, 
wasted and feeble, with one of the plates (the others 
he had used and burnt), on which was a portrait, full 
of subtle likeness, and drawn and colored in a way no 
one could have dreamt of, having had such an artist. 
I have seen it ; and though I never saw the original, 
I felt that it must be like, as indeed every one who 
knew her said it was. I do not, as I said before, know 
anything more remarkable in the history of human sor- 
row and resolve. 

I remember well that Dr. Belfrage was the first man 



MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 193 

I ever heard speak of Free-trade in religion and in 
education. It was during the first election after the 
Reform Bill, when Sir John Dalrymple, afterwards Lord 
Stair, was canvassing the county of Mid-Lothian. They 
were walking in the doctor's garden, Sir John anxious 
and gracious. Dr. Belfrage, like, I believe, every other 
minister in his body, was a thorough-going Liberal, what 
was then called a Whig; but partly from his natural 
sense of humor and relish of power, and partly, I be- 
lieve, for my benefit, he was putting the Baronet through 
his facings with some strictness, opening upon him 
startling views, and ending by asking him, " Are you, 
Sir John, for free-trade in corn, free-trade in education, 
free-trade in religion ? I am." Sir John said, " Well, 
doctor, I have heard of free-trade in corn, but never in 
the other two." " You'll hear of them before ten years 
are gone, Sir John, or I'm mistaken." 

I have said thus much of this to me memorable man, 
not only because he was my father's closest and most 
powerful personal friend, but because by his word he 
probably changed the whole future course of his life. 
Devotion to his friends was one of the chief ends of his 
life, not caring much for, and having in the affection of 
his heart a warning against the perils and excitement 
of distinction and energetic public work, he set him- 
self far more strenuously than for any selfish object, to 
promote the triumphs of those whom his acquired in- 
stinct — for he knew a man as a shepherd knows a 
sheep, or " Caveat Emptor " a horse — picked out as 
deserving them. He rests in Colinton churchyard, 

" Where all that mighty heart is lying still," — 

his only child William Henry buried beside him. I the 
13 



194 MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 

more readily pay this tribute to Dr. Belfrage, that I 
owe to him the best blessing of my professional and one 
of the best of my personal life — the being apprenticed 
to Mr. Syme. This was his doing. With that sense 
of the capacities and capabilities of other men, which 
was one of his gifts, he predicted the career of this 
remarkable man. He used to say, " Give him life, let 
him live, and I know what and where he will be thirty 
years hence ; " and this long before our greatest clinical 
teacher and wisest surgeon, had made the public and 
the profession feel and acknowledge the full weight of 
his worth. 

Another life-long and ever strengthening friendship 
was that with James Henderson, D. D., Galashiels, who 
survived my father only a few days. This remarkable 
man, and exquisite preacher, whose intellect and worth 
had for nearly fifty years glowed with a pure, steady, 
and ever-growing warmth and lustre in his own region, 
died during the night and probably asleep, when, like 
Moses, no one but his Maker was with him. He had 
for years labored under that form of disease of the 
heart called angina pectoris (Dr. Arnold's disease), and 
for more than twenty years lived as it were on the 
edge of instant death ; but during his later years his 
health had improved, though he had always to " walk 
softly," like one whose next step might be into eternity. 
This bodily sense of peril gave to his noble and leonine 
face a look of suffering and of seriousness, and of what, 
in his case, we may truly call godly fear, which all must 
remember. He used to say he carried his grave beside 
him. He came in to my father's funeral, and took part 
in the services. He was much affected, and we fear 
the long walk through the city to the burial-place was 



MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 195 

too much for him ; he returned home, preached a ser- 
mon on his old and dear friend's death of surpassing 
beauty. The text was, " For me to live is Christ, and 
to die is gain." It was, as it were, his own funeral 
sermon too, and there was, besides its fervor, depth, 
and heavenly-mindedness, a something in it that made 
his old hearers afraid — as if it were to be the last 
crush of the grapes. In a letter to me soon after the 
funeral, he said : — " His removal is another memento 
to me that my own course is drawing near to its end. 
Nearly all of my contemporaries and of the friends of 
my youth are now gone before me. Well ! I may say, 
in the words of your friend Vaughan — 

' They are all gone to that world of light, 

And I alone sit lingering here ; 
Their very memory 's calm and bright, 
And my sad thoughts doth cheer.' " 

The evening before his death he was slightly unwell, 
and next morning, not coming down as usual, was called, 
but did not answer ; and on going in, was found in the 
posture of sleep, quite dead : at some unknown hour of the 
night abiit ad plures — he had gone over to the major- 
ity, and joined the famous nations of the dead. Tu vero 
felix non vitce tantum claritale, sed etiam opportunttate 
mortis ! dying with his lamp burning, his passport made 
out for his journey ; death an instant act, not a prolonged 
process of months, as with his friend. 

I have called Dr. Henderson a remarkable man, and 
an exquisite preacher ; he was both, in the strict senses 
of the words. He had the largest brain I ever saw or 
measured. His hat had to be made for him ; and his 
head was great in the nobler regions ; the anterior and 
upper were full, indeed immense. If the base of his 



196 MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 

brain and his physical organization, especially his cir- 
culating system, had been in proportion, he would have 
been a man of formidable power, but his defective 
throb of the heart, and a certain lentitude of temper- 
ament, made this impossible ; and his enormous organ 
of thought and feeling, being thus shut from the outlet 
of active energy, became intensely meditative, more this 
than even reflective. The consequence was, in all his 
thoughts an exquisiteness and finish, a crystalline lustre, 
purity and concentration ; but it was the exquisiteness 
of a great nature. If the first edge was fine, it was the 
sharp end of the wedge, the broad end of which you 
never reached, but might infer. This gave momentum 
to everything he said. He was in the true sense what 
Chalmers used to call a " man of weclitr His mind 
acted by its sheer absolute power ; it seldom made an 
effort ; it was the hydraulic pressure, harmless, man- 
ageable, but irresistible ; not the perilous compression 
of steam. Therefore it was that he was untroubled and 
calm, though rich ; clear, though deep ; though gentle, 
never dull ; " strong without rage, without o'erflowing 
full." Indeed this element of water furnishes the best 
figure of his mind and its expression. His language 
was like the stream of his own Tweed ; it was a trans- 
lucent medium, only it brightened everything seen 
through it, as wetting a pebble brings out its lines 
and color. That lovely, and by him much-loved river 
was curiously like him, or he like it, gentle, great, 
strong, with a prevailing mild seriousness all along its 
course, but clear and quiet ; sometimes, as at old Mel- 
rose, turning upon itself, reflecting, losing itself in 
beauty, and careless to go, deep and inscrutable, but 
stealing away cheerily down to Lessudden, all the 



MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 197 

clearer of its rest ; and then again at the Trows, show- 
ing unmistakably its power in removing obstructions 
and taking its own way, and chafing nobly with the 
rocks, sometimes, too, like him, its silver stream rising 
into sudden flood, and rolling irresistibly on its way. 1 

We question if as many carefully thought and worded, 
and rapidly and by no means laboriously w r ritten ser- 
mons, were composed anywhere else in Britain during 
his fifty years — every Sunday two new ones ; the com- 
position faultless — such as Cicero or Addison w r ould 
have made them, had they been U. P. ministers ; only 
there was always in them more soul than body, more of 
the spirit than of the letter. What a contrast to the 
much turbid, hot, hasty, perilous stuff of our day and 
preachers ! The original power and size of Dr. Hen- 
derson's mind, his roominess for all thoughts, and his 
still reserve, his lentitude, made, as we have said, his 
expressions clear and quiet, to a degree that a coarse 
and careless man, spoiled by the violence and noise of 
other pulpit men, might think insipid. But let him go 
over the words slowly, and he would not say this again ; 

1 Such an occasional paroxysm of eloquence is thus described by 
Dr. Cairns : — "At certain irregular intervals, when the loftier themes 
of the gospel ministry were to be handled, his manner underwent a 
transformation which was startling, and even electrical. He became 
rapt and excited as with new inspiration; his utterance grew thick 
and rapid; his voice trembled and faltered with emotion; his eye 
gleamed with a wild unearthly lustre, in which his countenance 
shared; and his whole frame heaved to and fro, as if each glowing 
thought and vivid figure that followed in quick succession were only 
a fragment of some greater revelation which he panted to overtake. 
The writer of this notice has witnessed nothing similar in any preach- 
er, and numbers the effects of a passage which he once heard upon the 
scenes and exercises of the heavenly world among his most thrilling 
recollections of sacred oratory." — Memoir prefixed to posthumous vol- 
ume of Discourses. 



198 MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 

and let him see and feel the solemnizing, commanding 
power of that large, square, leonine countenance, the 
broad massive frame, as of a compressed Hercules, and 
the living, pure, melodious voice, powerful, but not by 
reason of loudness, dropping out from his compressed lips 
the words of truth, and he would not say this again. 
His voice had a singular pathos in it; and those who re- 
member his often-called-for sermon on " The Bright and 
the Morning Star," can reproduce in their mind its tones 
and refrain. The thoughts of such men — so rare, so 
apt to be unvisited and unvalued — often bring into my 
mind a spring of pure water I once saw near the top of 
Cairngorm ; always the same, cool in summer, keeping 
its few plants alive and happy with its warm breath 
in winter, floods and droughts never making its pulse 
change ; and all this because it came from the interior 
heights, and was distilled by nature's own cunning, and 
had taken its time — was indeed a well of living water. 
And with Dr. Henderson this of the mountain holds 
curiously ; he was retired, but not concealed ; and he was 
of the primary formation, he had no organic remains of 
other men in him ; he liked and fed on all manner of 
literature ; knew poetry well ; but it was all outside of 
him ; his thoughts were essentially his own. 

He was peculiarly a preacher for preachers, as Spen- 
ser is a poet for poets. They felt he was a master. He 
published, after the entreaties of years, a volume of ser- 
mons which has long been out of print, and which he 
would never prepare for a second edition ; he had much 
too little of the love of fame, and though not destitute of 
self-reliance and self-value, and resolved and unchange- 
able to obstinacy, he was not in the least degree vain. 

But you will think I am writing more about my 



MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 199 

father's friends and myself than about him. In a cer- 
tain sense we may know a man by his friends ; a man 
chooses his friends from harmony, not from sameness, 
just as we would rather sing in parts than all sing the 
air. One man fits into the mind of another not by 
meeting his points, but by dovetailing ; each finds in the 
other what he in a double sense wants. This was true 
of my father's friends. Dr. Balmer was like him in 
much more than perhaps any, — in love of books and 
lonely study, in his general views of divine truth, and 
in their metaphysical and literary likings, but they dif- 
fered deeply. Dr. Balmer was serene and just rather 
than subtle and profound ; his was the still, translucent 
stream, — my father's the rapid, and it might be deep ; 
on the one you could safely sail, the other hurried you 
on, and yet never were two men, during a long life of 
intimate intercourse, more cordial. 

I must close the list ; one only and the best — the 
most endeared of them all — Dr. Heugh. He was, in 
mental constitution and temper, perhaps more unlike my 
father than any of the others I have mentioned. His 
was essentially a practical understanding ; he was a man 
of action, a man for men more than for man, the curi- 
ous reverse in this of my father. He delighted in 
public life, had a native turn for affairs, for all that soci- 
ety needs and demands, — clear-headed, ready, intrepid, 
adroit ; with a fine temper, but keen and honest, with an 
argument and a question and a joke for every one ; not 
disputatious, but delighting in a brisk argument, fonder 
of wrestling than of fencing, but ready for action ; not 
much of a long shot, always keeping his eye on the im- 
mediate, the possible, the attainable, but in all this guided 
by genuine principle, and the finest honor and exactest 



200 MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 

truth. He excelled in the conduct of public business, 
saw his way clear, made other men see theirs, was for- 
ever getting the Synod out of difficulties and confusions, 
by some clear, tidy, conclusive " motion ; " and then his 
speaking, so easy and bright and pithy, manly and gen- 
tlemanly, grave when it should be, never when it should 
not — mobile, fearless, rapid, brilliant as Saladin — his 
silent, pensive, impassioned and emphatic friend was more 
like the lion-hearted Richard, with his heavy mace ; he 
might miss, but let him hit, and there needed no repe- 
tition. Each admired the other ; indeed Dr. Heugh's 
love of my father was quite romantic ; and though they 
were opposed on several great public questions, such as 
the Apocrypha controversy, the Atonement question at 
its commencement ; and though they were both of them 
too keen and too honest to mince matters or be mealy- 
mouthed, they never misunderstood each other, never 
had a shadow of estrangement, so that our Paul and 
Barnabas, though their contentions were sometimes sharp 
enough, never " departed asunder ; " indeed they loved 
each other the longer the more. 

Take him all in all, as a friend, as a gentleman, as a 
Christian, as a citizen, I never knew a man so thoroughly 
delightful as Dr. Heugh. Others had more of this or 
more of that, but there was a symmetry, a compactness, 
a sweetness, a true delightfulness about him I can remem- 
ber in no one else. No man, with so much temptation 
to be heady and high-minded, sarcastic, and managing, 
from his overflowing wit and talent, was ever more nat- 
ural, more honest, or more considerate, indeed tender- 
hearted. He was full of animal spirits and of fun, and 
one of the best wits and jokers I ever knew ; and such 
an asker of questions, of posers ! We children had a 



MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 201 

pleasing dread of that nimble, sharp, exact man, who 
made us explain and name everything. Of Scotch sto- 
ries he had as many original ones as would make a 
second volume for Dean Ramsay. How well I remem- 
ber the very corner of the room in Biggar manse, forty 
years ago, when from him I got the first shock and relish 
of humor ; became conscious of mental tickling ; of a 
word being made to carry double, and being all the 
lighter of it. It is an old story now, but it was new 
then ; a big, perspiring countryman rushed into the Black 
Bull coach-office, and holding the door, shouted, " Are 
yir insides a' oot ? " This was my first tasting of the 
flavor of a joke. 

Had Dr. Heugh, instead of being the admirable cler- 
gyman he was, devoted himself to public civil life, and 
gone into Parliament, he would have taken a high place 
as a debater, a practical statesman and patriot. He 
had many of the best qualities of Canning, and our own 
Premier, with purer and higher qualities than either. 
There is no one our church should be more proud of 
than of this beloved and excellent man, the holiness and 
humility, the jealous, godly fear in whose nature was 
not known fully even to his friends, till he was gone, 
when his private daily self-searchings and prostrations 
before his Master and Judge were for the first time 
made known. There are few characters, both sides of 
which are so unsullied, so pure, and without reproach. 

I am back at Biggar at the old sacramental times ; I 
see and hear my grandfather, or Mr. Home of Brae- 
head, Mr. Leckie of Peebles, Mr. Harper of Lanark, 
as inveterate in argument as he was warm in heart, 
Mr. Comrie of Penicuik, with his keen, Voltaire-like 
face, and much of that unhappy and unique man's wit, 



202 MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 

and sense, and perfection of expression, without his dark- 
er and baser qualities. I can hear their hearty talk, can 
see them coming and going between the meeting- 
house and the Tent on the side of the burn, and then 
the Monday dinner, and the cheerful talk, and the 
many clerical stories and pleasantries, and their going 
home on their hardy little horses, Mr. Comrie leaving 
his curl-papers till the next solemnity, and leaving also 
some joke of his own, clear and compact as a diamond, 
and as cutting. 

I am in Rose Street on the monthly lecture, the church 
crammed, passages and pulpit stairs. Exact to a min- 
ute, James Chalmers — the old soldier and beadle, slim, 
meek, but incorruptible by proffered half crowns from 
ladies who thus tried to get in before the doors opened 
— appears, and all the people in that long pew rise up, 
and he, followed by his minister, erect and engrossed, 
walks in along the seat, and they struggle up to the 
pulpit. We all know what he is to speak of; he looks 
troubled even to distress ; — it is the matter of Uriah 
the Hittite. He gives out the opening verses of the 
51st Psalm, and offering up a short and abrupt prayer, 
which every one takes to himself, announces his miser- 
able and dreadful subject, fencing it, as it were, in a low, 
penetrating voice, daring any one of us to think an evil 
thought ; there was little need at that time of the warn- 
ing, — he infused his own intense, pure spirit, into us 
all. 

He then told the story without note or comment, only 
personating each actor in the tragedy with extraordi- 
nary effect, above all, the manly, loyal, simple-hearted 
soldier. I can recall the shudder of that multitude as 
of one man when he read, " And it came to pass in 



MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 203 

the morning, that David wrote a letter to Joab, and 
sent it by the hand of Uriah. And he wrote in the 
letter, saying, Set ye Uriah in the forefront of the hot- 
test battle, and retire ye from him, that he may be 
smitten and die." And then, after a long and utter 
silence, his exclaiming, " Is this the man according to 
God's own heart ? Yes, it is ; we must believe that 
both are true." Then came Nathan. u There were two 
men in one city ; the one rich, and the other poor. The 
rich man had exceeding many flocks and herds ; but 
the poor man had nothing, save one little ewe lamb " 

— and all that exquisite, that divine fable — ending, 
like a thunder-clap, with " Thou art the man ! " Then 
came the retribution, so awfully exact and thorough, — 
the misery of the child's death ; that brief tragedy of 
the brother and sister, more terrible than anything in 
iEschylus, in Dante, or in Ford ; then the rebellion of 
Absalom, with its hideous dishonor, and his death, and 
the king covering his face, and crying in a loud voice, 
" my son Absalom ! O Absalom ! my son ! my son ! " 

— and David's psalm, " Have mercy upon me, O God, 
according to thy loving-kindness ; according unto the 
multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgres- 
sions," — then closing with, " Yes ; ' when lust hath con- 
ceived, it bringeth forth sin ; and sin, when it is finished, 
bringeth forth death. Do not err,' do not stray, do not 
transgress (firj irXavacrdt), 1 ' my beloved brethren,' it is 
first i earthly, then sensual, then devilish ; ' " he shut the 
book, and sent us all away terrified, shaken, and humbled, 
like himself. 

I would fain say a few words on my father's last ill- 

1 James i. 15, 16. It is plain that " do not err" should have been 
in verse 15th. 



204 MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 

ness, or rather on what led to it, and I wish you and 
others in the ministry would take to heart, as matter of 
immediate religious duty, much of what I am going to 
say. My father was a seven months' child, and lay, I 
believe, for a fortnight in black wool, undressed, doing 
little but breathe and sleep, not capable of being fed. 
He continued all his life slight in make, and not robust 
in health, though lively, and capable of great single 
efforts. His attendance upon his mother must have 
saddened his body as well as his mind, and made him 
willing and able to endure, in spite of his keen and ar- 
dent spirit, the sedentary life he in the main led. He 
was always a very small eater, and nice in his tastes, 
easily put off from his food by any notion. He there- 
fore started on the full work of life with a finer and 
more delicate mechanism than a man's ought to be, in- 
deed, in these respects he was much liker a woman ; 
and being very soon u placed," he had little travelling, 
and little of that tossing about the world, which in the 
transition from youth to manhood, hardens the frame 
as well as supples it. Though delicate, he was almost 
never ill. I do not remember, till near the close of his 
life, his ever being in bed a day. 

From his nervous system, and his brain predominat- 
ing steadily over the rest of his body, he was habitually 
excessive in his professional work. As to quantity, as 
to quality, as to manner and expression, he flung away 
his life without stint every Sabbath-day, his sermons 
being laboriously prepared, loudly mandated, and at 
great expense of body and mind, and then delivered 
with the utmost vehemence and rapidity. He was quite 
unconscious of the state he worked himself into, and of 
the loud piercing voice in which he often spoke. This 



MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 205 

I frequently warned him about, as being, I knew, inju- 
rious to himself, and often painful to his hearers, and 
his answer always was, that he was utterly unaware of 
it ; and thus it continued to the close, and very sad it 
was to me who knew the peril, and saw the coming end, 
to listen to his noble, rich, persuasive, imperative ap- 
peals, and to know that the surplus of power, if re- 
tained, would, by God's blessing, retain him, while the 
effect on his people would, I am sure, not have lost, but 
in some respects have gained, for much of the discourse 
which was shouted and sometimes screamed at the full 
pitch of his keen voice, was of a kind to be better ren- 
dered in his deep, quiet, settled tones. This, and the 
great length of his public services, I knew he himself 
felt, when too late, had injured him, and many a smile 
he had at my proposal to have a secret sub-congrega- 
tional string from him to me in the back seat, to be au- 
thoritatively twitched when I knew he had done enough ; 
but this string was never pulled, even in his mind. 

He went on in this expensive life, sleeping very little, 
and always lightly, eating little, never walking except 
of necessity ; little in company, when he would have 
eaten more and been, by the power of social relish, made 
likelier to get the full good out of his food ; never divert- 
ing his mind by any change but that of one book or sub- 
ject for another ; and every time that any strong afflic- 
tion came on him, as when made twice a widower, or 
at his daughter's death, or from such an outrage upon 
his entire nature and feelings as the Libel, then his del- 
icate machinery was shaken and damaged, not merely 
by the first shock, but even more by that unrelenting 
self-command by which he terrified his body into instant 
submission. Thus it was, and thus it ever must be, if 



206 MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 

the laws of our bodily constitution, laid down by Him 
who knows our frame, and from whom our substance 
is not hid, are set at nought, knowingly or not — if 
knowingly, the act is so much the more spiritually bad 
— but if not, it is still punished with the same unerring 
nicety, the same commensurate meting out of the pen- 
alty, and paying " in full tale," as makes the sun to know 
his time, and splits an erring planet into fragments, driv- 
ing it into space " with hideous ruin and combustion." 
It is a pitiful and a sad thing to say, but if my father 
had not been a prodigal in a true but very different 
meaning, if he had not spent his substance, the portion 
of goods that fell to him, the capital of life given him 
by God, in what we must believe to have been needless 
and therefore preventable excess of effort, we might, have 
had him still with us, shining more and more, and he 
and they who were with him would have been spared 
those two years of the valley of the shadow, with its 
sharp and steady pain, its fallings away of life, its long- 
ing for the grave, its sleepless nights and days of weari- 
ness and langour, the full expression of which you will 
find nowhere but in the Psalms and in Job. 

I have said that though delicate he was never ill : this 
was all the worse for him, for, odd as it may seem, many 
a man's life is lengthened by a sharp illness ; and this 
in several ways. In the first place, he is laid up, out 
of the reach of all external mischief and exertion, he is 
like a ship put in dock for repairs ; time is gained. A 
brisk fever clarifies the entire man ; if it is beaten and 
does not beat, it is like cleaning a chimney by setting it 
on fire ; it is perilous but thorough. Then the effort to 
throw off the disease often quickens and purifies and 
corroborates the central powers of life ; the flame burns 



MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 207 

more clearly ; there is a cleanness, so to speak, about all 
the wheels of life. Moreover, it is a warning, and 
makes a man meditate on his bed, and resolve to pull 
up ; and it warns his friends, and likewise, if he is a 
clergyman, his people, who if their minister is always 
with them, never once think he can be ever anything 
but as able as he is. 

Such a pause, such a breathing-time my father never 
got during that part of his life and labors when it would 
have availed most, and he was an old man in years, 
before he was a regular patient of any doctor. He * was 
during life subject to sudden headaches, affecting his 
memory and eyesight, and even his speech ; these at- 
tacks were, according to the thoughtless phrase of the 
day, called bilious ; that is, he was sick, and was re- 
lieved by a blue pill and smart medicine. Their true 
seat was in the brain ; the liver suffered because the 
brain was ill, and sent no nervous energy to it, or pois- 
oned what it did send. The sharp racking pain in the 
forehead was the cry of suffering from the anterior lobes, 
driven by their master to distraction, and turning on 
him wild with weakness and fear and anger. It was 
well they did cry out ; in some brains (large ones) they 
would have gone on dumb to sudden and utter ruin, as 
in apoplexy or palsy ; but he did not know, and no one 
told him their true meaning, and he set about seeking 
for the outward cause in some article of food, in some 
recent and quite inadequate cause. 

He used, with a sort of odd shame and distress, to ask 
me why it was that he was subjected to so much suffer- 
ing from what he called the lower and ignoble regions 
of his body ; and I used to explain to him that he had 
made them suffer by long years of neglect, and that they 



208 MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 

were now having their revenge, and in their own way. 
I have often found, that the more the nervous centres 
are employed in those offices of thought and feeling the 
most removed from material objects, — the more the 
nervous energy of the entire nature is concentrated, en- 
grossed, and used up in such offices, — so much the more, 
and therefore, are those organs of the body which pre- 
side over that organic life, common to ourselves and the 
lowest worm, defrauded of their necessary nervous food, 

— and being in the organic and not in the animal de- 
partment, and having no voice to tell their wants or 
wrongs, till they wake up and annoy their neighbors who 
have a voice, that is, who are sensitive to pain, they may 
have been long ill before they come into the sphere of 
consciousness. This is the true reason — along with 
want of purity and change of air, want of exercise, 1 want 
of shifting the work of the body — why clergymen, men 
of letters, and all men of intense mental application, are 
so liable to be affected with indigestion, constipation, lum- 
bago, and lowness of spirits, melancholia — black bile. 
The brain may not give way for long, because for a time 
the law of exercise strengthens it ; it is fed high, gets 
the best of everything, of blood and nervous pabulum, 
and then men have a joy in the victorious work of their 
brain, and it has a joy of its own, too, which deludes 
and misleads. 

All this happened to my father. He had no formal 
disease when he died — no structural change ; his sleep 
and his digestion would have been quite sufficient for life 

1 "The youth Story was in all respects healthy, and even robust; 
he died of overwork, or rather, as I understand, of a two years' almost 
total want of exercise, which it was impossible to induce him to take." 

— Arnold's Report to the Committee of Council on Education, 1860. 



MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 209 

even up to the last ; the mechanism was entire, but the 
motive-power was gone — it was expended. The silver 
cord was not so much loosed as relaxed. The golden 
bowl, the pitcher at the fountain, the wheel at the cistern, 
were not so much broken as emptied and stayed. The 
clock had run down before its time, and there was no 
one but He who first wound it up and set it who could 
wind it up again ; and this He does not do, because it is 
His law — an express injunction from Him — that, hav- 
ing measured out to his creatures each his measure of 
life, and left him to the freedom of his own will and the 
regulation of his reason, He also leaves him to reap as 
he sows. 

Thus it was that my father's illness was not so much a 
disease as a long death ; life ebbing away, consciousness 
left entire, the certain issue never out of sight. This, to 
a man of my father's organization — with a keen relish 
for life, and its highest pleasures and energies, sensitive 
to impatience, and then over-sensitive of his own impa- 
tience ; cut to the heart with the long watching and suf- 
fering of those he loved, who, after all, could do so little 
for him ; with a nervous system easily sunk, and by its 
strong play upon his mind darkening and saddening his 
most central beliefs, shaking his most solid principles, 
tearing and terrifying his tenderest affections : his mind 
free and clear, ready for action if it had the power, eager 
to be in its place in the work of the world and of its 
Master, to have to spend two long years in this ever- 
descending road — here was a combination of positive 
and negative suffering not to be thought of even now, 
when it is all sunk under that " far more exceeding and 
eternal weight of glory." 

He often spoke to me freely about his health, went 
14 



210 MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 

into it with the fearlessness, exactness, and persistency 
of his nature ; and I never witnessed, or hope to witness, 
anything more affecting than when, after it had been 
dawning upon him, he apprehended the true secret of 
his death. He was deeply humbled, felt that he had 
done wrong to himself, to his people, to us all, to his 
faithful and long-suffering Master ; and he often said, 
w T ith a dying energy lighting up his eye, and nervine 
his voice and gesture, that if it pleased God to let him 
again speak in his old place, he would not only proclaim 
again, and, he hoped, more simply and more fully, the 
everlasting gospel to lost man, but proclaim also the 
gospel of God to the body, the religious and Christian 
duty and privilege of living in obedience to the divine 
laws of health. He was delighted when I read to him, 
and turned to this purpose that wonderful passage of 
St. Paul — " For the body is not one member, but many. 
If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing ? 
if the whole were hearing, where were the smelling? 
But now hath God set the members every one of them 
in the body, as it hath pleased him. And the eye cannot 
say unto the hand, I have no need of thee ; nor again 
the head to the feet, I have no need of you. Nay, much 
more those members of the body, which seem to be more 
feeble, are necessary ; " summing it all up in words with 
life and death in them — " That there should be no 
schism in the body ; but that the members should have 
the same care one for another. And whether one mem- 
ber suffer, all the members suffer with it ; or one member 
be honored, all the members rejoice with it." 

The lesson from all this is, Attend to your bodies, 
study their structure, functions, and laws. This does not 
at all mean that you need be an anatomist, or go deep 



MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 211 

into physiology, or the doctrines of prevention and cure. 
Not only has each organism a resident doctor, placed 
there by Him who can thus heal all our diseases ; but 
this doctor, if watched and waited on, informs any man 
or woman of ordinary sense what things to do, and what 
things not to do. And I would have you, who, I fear, 
not unfrequently sin in the same way, and all our ardent, 
self-sacrificing young ministers, to reflect whether, after 
destroying themselves and dying young, they have lost 
or gained. It is said that God raises up others in our 
place. God gives you no title to say this. Men — such 
men as I have in my mind — are valuable to God in 
proportion to the time they are here. They are the 
older, the better, the riper and richer, and more enrich- 
ing. Nothing will make up for this absolute loss of life. 
For there is something which every man who is a good 
workman is gaining every year just because he is older, 
and this nothing can replace. Let a man remain on his 
ground, say a country parish, during half a century or 
more — let him be every year getting fuller and sweeter 
in the knowledge of God and man, in utterance and in 
power — can the power of that man for good over all his 
time, and especially towards its close, be equalled by that 
of three or four young, and, it may be, admirable men, 
who have been succeeding each other's untimely death, 
during the same space of time ? It is against all spirit- 
ual, as well as all simple arithmetic, to say so. 

You have spoken of my father's prayers. They were 
of two kinds ; the one, formal, careful, systematic, and 
almost stereotyped, remarkable for fulness and compres- 
sion of thought ; sometimes too manifestly the result of 
study, and sometimes not purely prayer, but more of the 
nature of a devotional and even argumentative address ; 



212 MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 

the other, as in the family, short, simple, and varied. He 
used to tell of his master, Dr. Lawson, reproving him, in 
his honest but fatherly way, as they were walking home 
from the Hall. My father had in his prayer the words, 
" that through death he might destroy him that had the 
power of death, — that is, the devil." The old man, 
leaning on his favorite pupil, said, " John, my man, you 
need not have said 'that is the devil;' you might have 
been sure that He knew whom you meant." My father, 
in theory, held that a mixture of formal, fixed prayer, in 
fact, a liturgy, along with extempore prayer, was the 
right thing. As you observe, many of his passages in 
prayer, all who were in the habit of hearing him could 
anticipate, such as " the enlightening, enlivening, sancti- 
fying, and comforting influences of the good Spirit," and 
many others. One in especial you must remember ; it 
was only used on very solemn occasions, and curiously 
unfolds his mental peculiarities ; it closed his prayer — 
" And now, unto Thee, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, 
the one Jehovah and our God, we would — as is most 
meet — with the church on earth and the church in 
heaven, ascribe all honor and glory, dominion and 
majesty, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever 
shall be, world without end. Amen." Nothing could 
be liker him than the interjection, " as is most meet." 
Sometimes his abrupt, short statements in the Synod 
were very striking. On one occasion, Mr. James 
Morison having stated his views as to prayer very 
strongly, denying that a sinner can pray, my father, 
turning to the Moderator, said — " Sir, let a man feel 
himself to be a sinner, and, for anything the universe 
of creatures can do for him, hopelessly lost, — let him 
feel this, sir, and let him get a glimpse of the Saviour, 



MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 213 

and all the eloquence and argument of Mr. Morison will 
not keep that man from crying out, ' God be merciful 
to me a sinner.' That, sir, is prayer — that is accepta- 
ble prayer." 

There must be, I fear, now and then an apparent 
discrepancy between you and me, especially as to the 
degree of mental depression which at times overshad- 
owed my father's nature. You will understand this, and 
I hope our readers will make allowance for it. Some 
of it is owing to my constitutional tendency to overstate, 
and much of it to my having had perhaps more fre- 
quent, and even more private, insights into this part of 
his life. But such inconsistency as that I speak of — 
the co-existence of a clear, firm faith, a habitual sense 
of God and of his infinite mercy, the living a life of 
faith, as if it was in his organic and inner life, more 
than in his sensational and outward — is quite com- 
patible with that tendency to distrust himself, that bodily 
darkness and mournfulness, which at times came over 
him. Any one who knows " what a piece of work is 
man ; " how composite, how varying, how inconsistent 
human nature is, that each of us are 

" Some several men, all in an hour,'* 

— will not need to be told to expect, or how to har- 
monize these differences of mood. You see this in that 
wonderful man, the apostle Paul, the true typical ful- 
ness, the humanness, so to speak, of whose nature comes 
out in such expressions of opposites as these — " By 
honor and dishonor, by evil report and good report : 
as deceivers, and yet true ; as unknown, and yet well 
known ; as dying, and, behold, we live ; as chastened, 
and not killed ; as sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing ; as 



214 MY FATHER'S MEMOIR. 

poor, yet making many rich ; as having nothing, and 
yet possessing all things." 

I cannot, and after your impressive and exact his- 
tory of his last days, I need not say anything of the 
close of those long years of suffering, active and pas- 
sive, and that slow ebbing of life ; the body, without 
help or hope, feeling its doom steadily though slowly 
drawing on ; the mind mourning for its suffering friend, 
companion, and servant; mourning also, sometimes, that 
it must be " unclothed," and take its flight all alone 
into the infinite unknown ; dying daily, not in the heat 
of fever, or in the insensibility or lethargy of paralytic 
disease, but having the mind calm and clear, and the 
body conscious of its own decay, — dying, as it were, 
in cold blood. One thing I must add. That morning 
when you were obliged to leave, and when " cold ob- 
struction's apathy " had already begun its reign — when 
he knew us, and that was all, and when he followed us 
with his dying and loving eyes, but could not speak — 
the end came ; and then, as through life, his will as- 
serted itself supreme in death. With that love of order 
and decency which was a law of his life, he deliberately 
composed himself, placing his body at rest, as if setting 
his house in order before leaving it, and then closed his 
eyes and mouth, so that his last look — the look his 
body carried to the grave and faced dissolution in — 
was that of sweet, dignified self-possession. 

I have made this letter much too long, and have said 
many things in it I never intended saying, and omitted 
much I had hoped to be able to say. But I must end. 
Yours ever affectionately, 

J. Brown. 



« mystifications:' 



" Health to the auld wife, and weel mat she be, 
That busks her fause rock wV the lint o' the lee (lie), 
Whirling her spindle and twisting the twine, 
Wynds aye the richt pirn into the richt line." 




« MYSTIFICATIONS." 



HOSE who knew the best of Edinburgh 



society eight-and-thirty years ago — and 
when was there ever a better than that 
best ? — must remember the personations 
of an old Scottish gentlewoman by Miss Stirling Gra- 
ham, one of which, when Lord Jeffrey was victimized, 
was famous enough to find its way into Blackwood, but 
in an incorrect form. 

Miss Graham's friends have for years urged her to 
print for them her notes of these pleasant records of 
the harmless and heart-easing mirth of bygone times ; 
to this she has at last assented, and the result is this 
entertaining, curious, and beautiful little quarto, in which 
her friends will recognize the strong understanding and 
goodness, the wit and invention, and fine pawlcy humor 
of the much-loved and warmhearted representative of 
Viscount Dundee — the terrible Clavers. 2 They will 
recall that blithe and winning face, sagacious and sin- 

1 Edinburgh: printed privately. 1859. 

2 Miss Graham's genealogy in connection with Claverhouse — the 
same who was killed at Killiecrankie — is as follows: — John Graham 
of Claverhouse married the Honorable Jean Cochrane, daughter of 
"William Lord Cochrane, eldest son of the first Earl of Dundonald. 
Their only son, an infant, died December 1689. David Graham, his 
brother, fought at Killiecrankie, and was outlawed in 1690 — died 



218 MYSTIFICATIONS. 

cere, that kindly, cheery voice, that rich and quiet laugh, 
that mingled sense and sensibility, which all met, and 
still, to our happiness, meet in her, who, with all her 
gifts and keen perception of the odd, and power of em- 
bodying it, never gratified her consciousness of these 
powers, or ever played 

" Her quips and cranks and wanton wiles," 

so as to give pain to any human being. 

The title of this memorial is Mystifications, and in 

the opening letter to her dear kinswoman and life-long 

friend, Mrs. Gillies, widow of Lord Gillies, she thus 

tells her story : — 

Duntrune, April 1859. 
My Dearest Mrs. Gillies, 

To you and the friends who have partaken in these 
" Mystifications" 1 dedicate this little volume, trusting 
that, after a silence of forty years, its echoes may awaken 
many agreeable memorials of a society that has nearly 
passed away. 

I have been asked if I had no remorse in ridiculing 
singularities of character, or practising deceptions ; — — 
certainly not. 

There was no personal ridicule or mimicry of any 
living creature, but merely the personation or type of 
a bygone class, that had survived the fashion of its 
day. 

without issue — when the representation of the family devolved on his 
cousin, David Graham of Duntrune. Alexander Graham of Duntrune 
died 1782; and on the demise of his last surviving son, Alexander, in 
1804, the property was inherited equally by his four surviving sisters, 
Anne, Amelia, Clementina, and Alison. Amelia, who married Patrick 
Stirling, Esq., of Pittendreich, was her mother. Clementina married 
Captain Gavin Drummond of Keltie; their only child was Clementina 
Countess of Airlie, and mother of the present Earl. 



MYSTIFICATIONS. 219 

It was altogether a fanciful existence, developing itself 
according to circumstances, or for the amusement of a 
select party, among whom the announcement of a stranger 
lady, an original, led to no suspicion of deception. No 
one ever took offence : indeed it generally elicited the 
finest individual traits of sympathy in the minds of the 
dupes, especially in the case of Mr. Jeffrey, whose sweet- 
tempered kindly nature manifested itself throughout the 
whole of the tiresome interview with the law-loving Lady 
Pitlyal. 

No one enjoyed her eccentricities more than he did, or 
more readily devised the arrangement of a similar scene 
for the amusement of our mutual friends. 

The cleverest people were the easiest mystified, and 
when once the deception took place, it mattered not how 
arrant the nonsense or how exaggerated the costume. In- 
deed, children and dogs were the only detectives. 

I often felt so identified with the character, so charmed 
with the pleasure manifested by my audience, that it be- 
came pamful to lay aside the veil, and descend again into 
the humdrum realities of my own self. 

These personations never lost me a friend ; on the 
contrary, they originated friendships that cease only with 
life. 

The Lady PitlyaVs course is run; she bequeaths to 
you these reminiscences of beloved friends and pleasant 
meetings. 

And that the blessing of God may descend on " each 
and all of you," is the fervent prayer of her kinswoman 
and executrix, 

CLEMENTINA STIRLING GRAHAM. 

I now beg to " convey," as Pistol delicately calls it, or 



220 MYSTIFICATIONS. 

as we on our side the Border would say, to "lift," enough 
of this unique volume to make my readers hunger for the 
whole. 

MRS. RAMSAY SPELDIN. 

Another evening Miss Guthrie requested me to intro- 
duce my old lady to Captain Alexander Lindsay, a son 
of the late Laird of Kinblethmont, and brother to the 
present Mr. Lindsay Carnegie, and Mr. Sandford, the 
late Sir Daniel Sandford. 

She came as a Mrs. Ramsay Speldin, an old sweet- 
heart of the laird's, and was welcomed by Mrs. Guthrie 
as a friend of the family. The young people hailed 
her as a perfectly delightful old lady, and an original 
of the pure Scottish character, and to the laird she was 
endeared by a thousand pleasing recollections. 

He placed her beside himself on the sofa, and they 
talked of the days gone by — before the green parks of 
Craigie were redeemed from the muir of Gotterston, 
and ere there was a tree planted between the auld house 
of Craigie and the Castle of Claypotts. 

She spoke of the " gude auld times, when the laird of 
Fintry widna gie his youngest dochter to Abercairney, 
but tell'd him to tak them as God had gien them to him, 
or want." 

" And do you mind," she continued, " the grand ploys 
we had at the Middleton ; and hoo Mrs. Scott of Gilhorn 
used to grind lilts out o' an auld kist to wauken her visi- 
tors i' the mornin\ 

"And some o' them didna like it sair, tho' nane o' them 
had courage to tell her sae, but Anny Graham o' Dun- 
trune. 



MYSTIFICATIONS. 22 1 

" * Lord forgie ye,' said Mrs. Scott. < ye'll no gae to 
heaven, if ye dinna like music ; ' but Anny was never 
at a loss for an answer, and she said, 'Mrs. Scott — 
heaven 's no the place I tak it to be, if there be auld 
wives in 't playing on hand-organs.' " 

Many a story did Mrs. Ramsay tell. The party drew 
their chairs close to the sofa, and many a joke she re- 
lated, till the room rung again with the merriment, and 
the laird, in ecstasy, caught her round the waist, exclaim- 
ing " Oh ! ye are a canty wifie." 

The strangers seemed to think so too ; they absolutely 
hung upon her, and she danced reels, first with the one, 
and then with the other, till the entrance of a servant 
with the newspapers produced a seasonable calm. 

They lay, however, untouched upon the table till Mrs. 
Ramsay requested some one to read over the claims that 
were putting in for the King's coronation, and see if there 
was any mention of hers. 

" What is your claim ? " said Mr. Sandford. 

" To pyke the King's teeth," was the reply. 

" You will think it very singular," said Mr. Guthrie, 
" that I never heard of it before ; will you tell us how 
it originated ? " 

" It was in the time of James the First," said she, 
" that monarch cam to pay a visit to the monks of Ar- 
broath, and they brought him to Ferryden to eat a fish 
dinner at the house o' ane o' my forefathers. The family 
name, ye ken, was Spelden, and the dried fish was ca'd 
after them. 

" The king was well satisfied wi' a' thing that was 
done to honor him. He was a very polished prince, and 
when he had eaten his dinner he turned round to the 
lady and sought a preen to pyke his teeth. 






222 MYSTIFICATIONS. 

" And the lady, she took a fish bane and wipit it, and 
gae it to the king ; and after he had cleaned his teeth wi' 
it, he said, ' They We weel pykit' 

" And henceforth, continued he, the Speldins of Fer- 
ryden shall pyke the king's teeth at the coronation. And 
it shall be done wi' a fish-bone, and a pearl out o' the 
Southesk on the end of it. And their crest shall be a 
lion's head wi' the teeth displayed, and the motto shall be 
weel pykit" 

Mr. Sandford read over the claims, but there was no 
notice given of the Speldins. 

" We maun just hae patience," said Mrs. Ramsay, 
" and nae doubt it will appear in the next newspaper." 

Some one inquired who was the present representa- 
tive ? 

" It 's me," replied Mrs. Ramsay Speldin ; " and I 
mean to perform the office mysel'. The estate wad hae 
been mine too, had it existed ; but Neptune, ye ken, is 
an ill neighbor, and the sea has washed it a' away but 
a sand bunker or twa, and the house I bide in at 
Ferry den." 

At supper every one was eager to have a seat near 
Mrs. Ramsay Speldin. She had a universal acquaint- 
ance, and she even knew Mr. Sandford's mother, when 
he told her that her name was Catherine Douglas. Mr. 
Sandford had in his own mind composed a letter to Sir 
Walter Scott, which was to have been written and des- 
patched on the morrow, giving an account of this fine 
specimen of the true Scottish character whom he had 
met in the county of Angus. 

We meant to carry on the deception next morning, 
but the laird was too happy for concealment. Before 
the door closed on the good-night of the ladies, he had 



MYSTIFICATIONS. 223 

disclosed the secret, and before we reached the top of 
the stairs, the gentlemen were scampering at our heels 
like a pack of hounds in full cry. 

Here are at random some extracts from the others : — 

Mr. Jeffrey now inquired what the people in her part 
of the country thought of the trial of the Queen. She 
could not tell, him, but she would say what she herself 
had remarked on siclike proceedings : " Tak' a wreath 
of snaw, let it be never so white, and wash it through 
clean water, it will no come out so pure as it gaed in, 
far less the dirty dubs the poor Queen has been drawn 
through." 

Mr. Russell inquired if she possessed any relics of 
Prince Charles from the time he used to spin with the 
lasses : — 

" Yes," she said, " I have a flech that loupit aff him 
upon my aunty, the Lady Brax, when she was helping 
him on wi' his short-gown ; my aunty rowed it up in a 
sheet of white paper, and she keepit it in the tea can- 
ister, and she ca'd it aye the King's Flech ; and the 
laird, honest man, when he wanted a cup of gude tea, 
sought aye a cup of the Prince's mixture" This pro- 
duced peals of laughter, and her ladyship laughed as 
heartily as any of them. When somewhat composed 
again, she looked across the table to Mr. Clerk, and 
offered to let him see it. " It is now set on the pivot 
of my watch, and a' the warks gae round the flech in 
place of turning on a diamond." 

Lord Gillies thought this flight would certainly betray 
her, and remarked to Mr. Clerk that the flea must be 
painted on the watch, but Mr. Clerk said he had known 
of relics being kept of the Prince quite as extraordinary 
as a flea ; that Mr. Murray of Simprim had a pocket- 



224 MYSTIFICATIONS. 

handkerchief in which Prince Charles had blown his 
nose. 

The Lady Pitlyal said her daughter did not value 
these things, and that she was resolved to leave it as a 
legacy to the Antiquarian Society. 

Holmehead was rather amused with her originality, 
though he had not forgotten the attack. He said he 
w r ould try if she was a real Jacobite, and he called out, 
" Madam, I am going to propose a toast for ye ! 

" May the Scotch Thistle choke the Hanoverian 
Horse." 

" I wish I binna among the "Whigs," she said. 

" And whare wad ye be sae weel ? " retorted he. 

" They murdered Dundee's son at Glasgow." 

" There was nae great skaith," he replied ; " but ye 
maun drink my toast in a glass of this cauld punch, if 
ye be a true Jacobite." 

" Aweel, a weel," said the Lady Pitlyal ; " as my auld 
friend Lady Christian Bruce was wont to say, ' The 
best way to get the better of temptation is just to yield 
to it ; ' " and as she nodded to the toast and emptied 
the glass, Holmehead swore exultingly — " Faith, she 's 
true ! " 

Supper passed over, and the carriages were announced. 
The Lady Pitlyal took her leave with Mrs. Gillies. 

Next day the town rang with the heiress of Pitlyal. 
Mr. W. Clerk said he had never met with such an 
extraordinary old lady, " for not only is she amusing 
herself, but my brother John is like to expire, when I 
relate her stories at second-hand." 

He talked of nothing else for a week after, but the 
heiress, and the flea, and the rent-roll, and the old tur- 
reted house of Pitlyal, till at last his friends thought it 



MYSTIFICATIONS. 225 

would be right to undeceive him ; but that was not so 
easily done, for when the Lord Chief-Commissioner 
Adam hinted that it might be Miss Stirling, he said 
that was impossible, for Miss Stirling was sitting by the 
old lady the whole of the evening. 

Here is a bit of Sir Walter — 

Turning to Sir Walter, " I am sure you had our laird 
in your e'e when you drew the character of Monk- 
barns." 

" No/' replied Sir Walter, " but I had in my eye a 
very old and respected friend of my own, and one with 
whom, I daresay you, Mrs. Arbuthnott, were acquainted 
— the late Mr. George Constable of Wallace, near Dun- 
dee." 

" I kenned him weel," said Mrs. Arbuthnott, " and his 
twa sisters that lived wi' him, Jean and Christian, and 
I 've been in the blue-chamber of his Hospitium ; but 
I think," she continued, u our laird is the likest to 
Monkbarns o' the twa. He's at the Antiquarian So- 
ciety the night, presenting a great curiosity that was 
found in a quarry of mica slate in the hill at the back 
of Balwylie. He's sair taken up about it, and puzzled 
to think what substance it may be ; but James Dalgetty, 
wha's never at a loss either for the name or the nature 
of onything under the sun, says it's just Noah's auld 
wig that blew aff yon time he put his head out of 
the window of the ark to look after his corbie mes- 
senger." 

James Dalgetty and his opinion gave subject of much 
merriment to the company, but Doctor Coventry thought 
there was nothing so very ludicrous in the remark, for 
in that kind of slate there are frequently substances found 
resembling hairs. 

15 



226 MYSTIFICATIONS. 

Lord Gillies presented Doctor Coventry to Mrs. Ar- 
butbnott, as the well-known professor of agriculture, and 
they entered on a conversation respecting soils. She 
described those of Balwylie, and the particular proper- 
ties of the Surroch Parle, which James Dalgetty curses 
every time it's spoken about, and says, " it greets a' 
winter, and girns a' simmer." 

The doctor rubbed his hands with delight, and said 
that was the most perfect description of cold wet land 
he had ever heard of; and Sir Walter expressed a wish 
to cultivate the acquaintance of James Dalgetty, and 
extorted a promise from Mrs. Arbuthnott that she would 
visit Abbotsford, and bring James with her. " I have 
a James Dalgetty of my own," continued Sir Walter, 
" that governs me just as yours does you." 

Lady Ann and Mr. Wharton Duff and their daugh- 
ter were announced, and introduced to Mrs. Arbuth- 
nott. 

At ten, Sir Walter and Miss Scott took leave, with 
a promise that they should visit each other, and bend- 
ing down to the ear of Mrs. Arbuthnott, Sir Walter 
addressed her in these words : " Aw a ! awa ! the deil 's 
ower grit wi' you." 

And now are we not all the better for this . pleasan- 
try ? so womanly, so genial, so rich, and so without a 
sting, — such a true diversion, with none of the sin of 
effort or of mere cleverness ; and how it takes us into 
the midst of the strong-brained and strong-hearted men 
and women of that time ! what an atmosphere of sense 
and good-breeding and kindliness ! And then the Scotch ! 
cropping out everywhere as blithe, and expressive, and 
unexpected as a gowan or sweet-briar rose, with an 



MYSTIFICATIONS. 227 

occasional thistle, sturdy, erect, and bristling with Nemo 
me. Besides the deeper and general interest of these 
Mystifications, in their giving, as far as I know, a unique 
specimen of true personation — distinct from acting — 
I think it a national good to let our youngsters read, 
and, as it were, hear the language which our gentry and 
judges and men of letters spoke not long ago, and into 
which such books as Dean Ramsay's and this are breath- 
ing the breath of its old life. Was there ever anything 
better or so good, said of a stiff clay, than that it " girns 
(grins) a' simmer, and greets (weeps) a' winter ? " 



"Off, I'M WAT, WAT!" 



The father of the Rev. Mr. Steven of Largs, was the son of a far- 
mer, who lived next farm to Mossgiel. When a boy of eight, he found 
u Robbie" who was a great friend of his, and of all the children, engaged 
digging a large trench in afield, Gilbert, his brother, with him. The boy 
pausing on the edge of the trench, and looking down upon Burns, said, 
" Robbie, what's that yeWe doin 1 ?" " Howkiri' a muckle hole, Tammie." 
u What for V " To bury the Deil in, Tammie 1 " (one can fancy how 
those eyes would glow.) "Abut, Robbie" said the logical Tammie, 
"hoo're ye to get him in? " " Ay," said Burns, "that's it, hoo are we 
to get Him in ! ' ' and went off into shouts of laughter ; and every now 
and then during that summer day shouts would come from that hole, as the 
idea came over him. If one could only have daguerreotyped his day's 
fancies ! 



"OH, I'M WAT, WAT!" 




;HAT is love, Mary?" said Seventeen to 
Thirteen, who was busy with her English 
lessons. 
" Love ! what do you mean, John ? " 

" I mean, what's love ? " 

" Love's just love, I suppose." 

(Yes, Mary, you are right to keep by the concrete ; 
analysis kills love as well as other things. I once asked 
a useful-information young lady what her mother was. 
i Oh, mamma's a biped ! ' I turned in dismay to her 
younger sister, and said, What do you say ? ' Oh, my 
mother's just my mother.' ) 

" But what part of speech is it ? " 

" It's a substantive or a verb." (Young Home Tooke 
didn't ask her if it was an active or passive, an irregular 
or defective verb ; an inceptive, as calesco, I grow warm, 
or dulcesco, I grow sweet ; a frequentative or a desidera- 
tive, as nupturio, I desire to marry.) 

" I think it is a verb," said John, who was deep in 
other diversions, besides those of Purley ; " and I think 
it must have been originally the Perfect of Live, like 
thrive throve, strive strove." 

" Capital, John ! " suddenly growled Uncle Oldbuck, 
who was supposed to be asleep in his arm-chair by the 



232 " OH, I'M WAT, WAT ! " 

fireside, and who snubbed and supported the entire 
household. " It was that originally, and it will be our 
own faults, children, if it is not that at last, as well as, 
ay, and more than at first. What does Richardson say, 
John ? read him out." John reads — 

LOVE, v. s. To prefer, to desire, as an 

-less. object of possession or enjoy- 

-ly, ad. av. ment ; to delight in, to be 

-lily. pleased or gratified with, to 

-liness. take pleasure or gratification 

-er. in, delight in. 

-ing. Love, the s is app. emph. to 

-ixgly. the passion between the sexes. 

-ingness. Lover is, by old writers, app. as 

-able.* friend — by male to male. 

-SOME.f Love is much used — pref. 

ered.J * Wiclif. \ Chaucer. % Shah 

Love-locks, — locks (of hair) to set off the 

beauty; the loveliness. 

A. S. Lvf-ian; D. Lie-ven; Ger. -ben, amare, dil- 
igere. Wach. derives from lleb, bonum, because 
every one desires that which is good: Ueb, it is more 
probable, is from lieb-en, grateful, and therefore 
good. It may at least admit a conjecture that A. 
S. Lufian, to love, has a reason for its application 
similar to that of L. Di-ligere (legere, to gather), 
to take up or out (of a number), to choose, sc. one 
in preference to another, to prefer; and that it is 
formed upon A. S. Hlif-ian, to lift or take up, to 
pick up, to select, to prefer. Be- Over- Un- 

Uncle impatiently. — " Stuff ; ' grateful ! ' ' pick up ! ' 
stuff! These word-mongers know nothing about it. 
Live, love ; that is it, the perfect of live." 1 

After this, Uncle sent the cousins to their beds. 

1 They are strange beings, these lexicographers. Richardson, for 



" OH, I'M WAT, WAT ! » 233 

Mary's mother was in hers, never to rise from it again. 
She was a widow, and Mary was her husband's niece. 
The house quiet, Uncle sat down in his chair, put his 
feet on the fender, and watched the dying fire ; it had a 
rich central glow, but no flame, and no smoke, it was 
flashing up fitfully, and bit by bit falling in. He fell 
asleep watching it, and when he slept, he dreamed. He 
was young ; he was seventeen ; he was prowling about 
the head of North St. David Street, keeping his eye on 
a certain door, — we call them common stairs in Scot- 
land. He was waiting for Mr. White's famous English 
class for girls coming out. Presently out rushed four 
or five girls, wild and laughing ; then came one, bound- 
ing like a roe : 

" Such eyes were in her head, 
And so much grace and power! " 

She was surrounded by the rest, and away they went 

laughing, she making them always laugh the more. 

Seventeen followed at a safe distance, studying her 

small, firm, downright heel. The girls dropped off one 

by one, and she was away home by herself, swift and 

reserved. He, imposter as he was, disappeared through 

Jamaica Street, to reappear and meet her, walking as 

if on urgent business, and getting a cordial and careless 

nod. This beautiful girl of thirteen was afterwards the 

mother of our Mary, and died in giving her birth. She 

was Uncle Oldbuck's first and only sweetheart : and here 

instance, under the word snail, gives this quotation from Beaumont 
and Fletcher's Wit at Several Weapons, — 

" Oh, Master Pompey ! how is 't, man ? 
Clown — Snails, I'm almost starved with love and cold, and one 
thing or other." 

Any one else knows of course that it is " 's nails " — the contrac- 
tion of the old oath or interjection — God's nails. 



234 " OH, I'M WAT, WAT ! " 

was he, the only help our young Home Tooke, and his 
mother and Mary had. Uncle awoke, the fire dead, and 
the room cold. He found himself repeating Lady John 

Scott's lines — 

" When thou art near me, 
Sorrow seems to fly, 
And then I think, as well I may, 
That on this earth there is no one 
More blest than I. 

But when thou leav'st me, 

Doubts and fears arise, 
And darkness reigns, 

Where all before was light. 
The sunshine of my soul 

Is in those eyes, 
And when they leave me 

All the world is night. 

But when thou art near me, 

Sorrow seems to fly, 
And then I feel, as well I may, 
That on this earth there dwells not one 
So blest as I." i 

Then taking down Chambers's Scottish Songs, he read 
aloud : — 

" I'm wat, wat, 

I'm wat and weary; 
Yet fain wad I rise and rin, 

If I thocht I would meet my dearie. 
Aye waukin', ! 

Waukin' aye, and weary; 
Sleep, I can get nane 
For thinkin' o' my dearie. 

Simmer 's a pleasant time, 
Flowers o' every color; 

1 Can the gifted author of these lines and of their music not be pre- 
vailed on to give them and others to the world, as well as to her 
friends ? 



" OH, I'M WAT, WAT ! " 235 

The winter rins ower the heugh, 
And I long for my true lover. 

When I sleep I dream, 

When I wauk I'm eerie, 
Sleep I can get nane, 

For thinkin' o 1 my dearie. 

Lanely nicht comes on, 

A' the lave are sleepin' ; 
I think on my true love, 

And blear my e'en wi' greetin\ 

Feather beds are saft — 

Pentit rooms are bonnie; 
But ae kiss o' my dear love 

Better's far than ony. 

_ O for Friday nicht ! — 

Friday at the gloamin' ; 
O for Friday nicht — 

Friday 's lang o' comin' ! " 

This love-song, which Mr. Chambers gives from reci- 
tation, is, thinks Uncle to himself, all but perfect ; Burns, 
who in almost every instance, not only adorned, but 
transformed and purified whatever of the old he touched, 
breathing into it his own tenderness and strength, fails 
here, as may be seen in reading his version. 

" Oh, spring 's a pleasant time ! 

Flowers o' every color — 
The sweet bird builds her nest, 

And I lang for my lover. 
Aye wakin', oh! 

Wakin' aye and wearie ; 
Sleep I can get nane, 

For thinkin' o' my dearie ! 

" When I sleep I dream, 
When I wauk I'm eerie, 
Rest I canna get, 

For thinkin' o' my dearie. 



236 ." OH, I'M WAT, WAT ! '' 

Aye wakin', oh! 

Wakin' aye and weary ; 

Come, come, blissful dream, 

Bring me to my dearie. 

"Darksome nicht comes doun — 

A' the lave are sleepin' ; 
I think on my kind lad, 

And blin' my een wi' greetin'. 
Aye wakin', oh! 

Wakin' aye and wearie ; 
Hope is sweet, but ne'er 

Sae sweet as my dearie ! " 

How weak these italics! No one can doubt which of 
these is the better. The old song is perfect in the pro- 
cession, and in the simple beauty of its thoughts and 
words. A ploughman or shepherd — for I hold that it 
is a man's song — comes in " wat, wat " after a hard 
day's work among the furrows, or on the hill. The wat- 
ness of wat, wat, is as much wetter than wet as a Scotch 
mist is more of a mist than an English one ; and he is 
not only wat, wat, but " weary," longing for a dry skin 
and a warm bed and rest ; but no sooner said and felt, 
than, by the law of contrast, he thinks on " Mysie " or 
" Ailie," his Genevieve ; and then " all thoughts, all pas- 
sions, all delights," begin to stir him, and " fain wad I 
rise and rin (what a swiftness beyond run is " rin " !) 
Love now makes him a poet ; the true imaginative 
power enters and takes possession of him. By this 
time his clothes are off, and he is snug in bed ; not a 
wink can he sleep ; that " fain " is domineering over 
him, — and he breaks out into what is as genuine pas- 
sion and poetry, as anything from Sappho to Tennyson 
— abrupt, vivid, heedless of syntax. " Simmer 's a pleas- 
ant time." Would any of our greatest geniuses, being 



"OH, I'M WAT, WAT!" 237 

limited to one word, have done better than take " pleas- 
ant ? " and then the fine vagueness of " time ! " " Flow- 
ers o' every color ; " he gets a glimpse of u herself a 
fairer flower," and is off in pursuit. " The water rins 
ower the heugh " (a steep precipice) ; flinging itself 
wildly, passionately over, and so do I long for my true 
lover. Nothing can be simpler and finer than 

11 When I sleep, I dream ; 

When I wauk, I'm eerie." 

" Lanely nicht ; " how much richer and touching than 
" darksome." " Feather beds are saft ; " " paintit rooms 
are bonnie ; " I would infer from this, that his " dearie," 
his "true love," was a lass up at "the big house" — 
a dapper Abigail possibly — at Sir William's at the 
Castle, and then we have the final paroxysm upon Fri- 
day nicht — Friday at the gloamin' ! for Friday 
nicht ! — Friday 's lang o' comin' ! — it being very likely 
Thursday before daybreak, when this affectionate ulu- 
latus ended in repose. 

Now, is not this rude ditty, made very likely by some 
clumsy, big-headed Galloway herd, full of the real stuff 
of love? He does not go off upon her eyebrows, or 
even her eyes ; he does not sit down, and in a genteel 
way announce that " love in thine eyes forever sits," 
&c. &c, or that her feet look out from under her pet- 
ticoats like little mice : he is far past that ; he is not 
making love, he is in it. This is one and a chief charm 
of Burns' love-songs, which are certainly of all love- 
songs except those wild snatches left to us by her who 
flung herself from the Leucadian rock, the most in 
earnest, the tenderest, the " most moving delicate and 
full of life." Burns makes you feel the reality and the 



238 "OH, I'M WAT, WAT!" 

depth, the truth of his passion ; it is not her eyelashes 
or her nose, or her dimple, or even 

"A mole cinque-spotted, like the crimson drops 
I' the bottom of a cowslip," 

that are " winging the fervor of his love ; " not even 
her soul ; it is herself. This concentration and earnest- 
ness, this perfervor of our Scottish love poetry, seems to 
me to contrast curiously with the light, trifling philander- 
ing of the English ; indeed, as far as I remember, we 
have almost no love-songs in English, of the same class 
as this one, or those of Burns. They are mostly either 
of the genteel, or of the nautical (some of these capital), 
or of the comic school. Do you know the most perfect, 
the finest love-song in our or in any language ; the love 
being affectionate more than passionate, love in posses- 
sion not in pursuit ? 

" Oh, wert thou in the cauld blast 

On yonder lea, on yonder lea, 
My plaidie to the angry airt, 

I'd shelter thee, I'd shelter thee: 
Or did Misfortune's bitter storms 

Around thee blaw, around thee blaw, 
Thy bield should be my bosom, 

To share it a', to share it a'. 

" Or were I in the wildest waste, 

Sae black and bare, sae black and bare, 
The desert were a paradise, 

If thou wert there, if thou wert there : 
Or were I monarch o' the globe, - 

Wi' thee to reign, wi' thee to reign, 
The brightest jewel in my crown 

Wad be my queen, wad be my queen." 

The following is Mr. Chambers' account of the origin 



" OH, I'M WAT, WAT ! » 239 

of this song : — Jessy Lewars had a call one morning 
from Burns. He offered, if she would play him any 
tune of which she was fond, and for which she desired 
new verses, that he would do his best to gratify her wish. 
She sat down at the piano, and played over and over the 
air of an old song, beginning with the words — 

" The robin cam' to the wren's nest, 

And keekit in, and keekit in: 
' weel's me on your auld pow! 
Wad ye be in, wad ye be in? 
Ye' se ne'er get leave to lie without, 

And I within, and I within, 
As lang 's I hae an auld clout, 
To row ye in, to row ye in.' " 

Uncle now took his candle, and slunk off to bed, slip- 
ping up noiselessly that he might not disturb the thin 
sleep of the sufferer, saying in to himself — " I'd shelter 
thee, I'd shelter thee ; " " If thou wert there, if thou 
w T ert there ; " and though the morning was at the win- 
dow, he was up by eight, making breakfast for John and 
Mary. 

Love never faileth ; but whether there be prophecies, 
they shall fail ; whether there be tongues, they shall 
cease ; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish 
away ; but love is of God, and cannot fail. 



ARTHUR H. HALL AM. 



11 Pr^esens imperfectum, — perfectum, plusquam perfection futu- 

RUM." — GROTIUS. 

" The idea of thy life shall sweetly creep 
Into my study of imagination ; 
And every lovely organ of thy life 
Shall come apparelled in more precious habit — 
More moving delicate, and full of life, 
Into the eye and prospect of my soul, 
Than when tlwu livedst indeed.' 1 '' 

Much Ado about Nothing. 



16 



ARTHUR H. HALLAM. 



u 



N the chancel of Clevedon Church, Somer- 
j fe^z setshire, rest the mortal remains of Arthur 
Qy*\ kv> Henry Hallam, eldest son of our great 
(£^—4 ^ philosophic historian and critic, — and the 
friend to whom " In Memoriam " is sacred. This place 
was selected by his father, not only from the connection 
of kindred, being the burial-place of his maternal grand- 
father, Sir Abraham Elton, but likewise " on account of 
its still and sequestered situation, on a lone hill that over- 
hangs the Bristol Channel." That lone hill, with its 
humble old church, its outlook over the waste of waters, 
where " the stately ships go on," was, we doubt not, in 
Tennyson's mind, when the poem, " Break, break, break," 
which contains the burden of that volume in which are 
enshrined so much of the deepest affection, poetry, phi- 
losophy, and godliness, rose into his " study of imagina- 
tion " — i; into the eye and prospect of his soul." 1 

1 The passage from Shakspeare prefixed to this paper, contains 
probably as much as can be said of the mental, not less than the 
affectionate conditions, nnder which such a record as In Memoriam 
is produced, and may give us more insight into the imaginative facul- 
ty's mode of working, than all our philosophizing and analysis. It 
seems to let out with the fulness, simplicity, and unconsciousness of a 
child — "Fancy's Child" — the secret mechanism or procession of 
the greatest creative mind our race has produced. In itself, it has 
no recondite meaning, it answers fully its own sweet purpose. We 



244 REMAINS OF 

"Break, break, break, 

On thy cold gray stories, sea! 
And I would that my tongue could utter 
The thoughts that arise in me. 

" well for the fisherman's boy 

That he shouts with his sister at play! 
well for the sailor lad 
That he sings in his boat on the bay ! 

" And the stately ships go on 

To their haven under the hill ! 
But O for the touch of a vanish' d hand, 
And the sound of a voice that is still ! 

" Break, break, break, 

At the foot of thy crags, sea ! 
But the tender grace of a day that is dead 
Will never come back to me." 

Out of these few simple words, deep and melancholy, 
and sounding as the sea, as out of a well of the living 

are not believers, like some folks, in the omniscience of even Shak- 
speare. But, like many things that he and other wise men and many 
simple children say, it has a germ of universal meaning, which it is 
quite lawful to bring out of it, and which may be enjoyed to the full 
without any wrong to its own original beauty and fitness. A dew- 
drop is not the less beautiful that it illustrates in its structure the law 
of gravitation which holds the world together, and by which " the 
most ancient heavens are fresh and strong." This is the passage. 
The Friar speaking of Claudio, hearing that Hero "died upon his 
word," says, — 

" The idea of her life shall sweetly creep 
Into his study of imagination ; 
And every lovely organ of her life 
Shall come apparelled in more precious habit — 
More moving delicate, and full of life, 
Into the eye and prospect of his soul, 
Than when she lived indeed." 

"We have here expressed in plain language the imaginative memory 



ARTHUR H. HALLAM. 245 

waters of love, flows forth all In Memoriam, as a stream 
flows out of its spring — all is here. " I would that my 
tongue could utter the thoughts that arise in me," — " the 
touch of the vanished hand — the sound of the voice that 
is still," — the body and soul of his friend. Rising as it 
were out of the midst of the gloom of the valley of the 
shadow of death, — 

" The mountain infant to the sun comes forth 
Like human life from darkness ; " 

and how its waters flow on ! carrying life, beauty, mag- 
nificence, — shadows and happy lights, depths of black- 
ness, depths clear as the very body of heaven. How it 
deepens as it goes, involving larger interests, wider views, 
"thoughts that wander through eternity," greater affec- 
tions, but still retaining its pure living waters, its unfor- 

of the beloved dead, rising upon the past, like moonlight upon mid- 
night, — 

" The gleam, the shadow, and the peace supreme." 

This is its simple meaning — the statement of a truth, the utterance 
of personal feeling. But observe its hidden abstract significance — it 
is the revelation of what goes on in the depths of the soul, when the 
dead elements of what once was, are laid before the imagination, and 
so breathed upon as to be quickened into a new and higher life. We 
have first the Idea of her Life — all he remembered and felt of her, 
gathered into one vague shadowy image, not any one look, or action, 
or time — then the idea of her life creeps — is in before he is aware, 
and sweetly creeps, — it might have been softly or gently, but it is 
the addition of affection to all this, and bringing in another sense — 
and now it is in his study of imagination — what a place ! fit for such a 
visitor. Then out comes the Idea, more particular, more questionable, 
but still ideal, spiritual — every lovely organ of her life — then the cloth- 
ing upon, the mortal putting on its immortal, spiritual body — shall 
come apparelled in more precious habit, more moving delicate — this is the 
transfiguring, the putting on strength, the poco jnii — the little more 
which makes immortal, — more full of life, and all this submitted to 
— the eye and prospect of the soul. 



246 REMAINS OF 

gotten burden of love and sorrow. How it visits every 
region ! " the long unlovely street," pleasant villages and 
farms, " the placid ocean-plains," waste howling wilder- 
nesses, grim woods, nemorumque nocte?n, informed with 
spiritual fears, where may be seen, if shapes they may 
be called — 

" Fear and trembling Hope, 
Silence and Foresight ; Death the Skeleton, 
And Time the Shadow; " 

now within hearing of the Minster clock, now of the 
College bells, and the vague hum of the mighty city. 
And overhead through all its course the heaven with 
its clouds, its sun, moon, and stars ; but always, and in 
all places, declaring its source ; and even when laying 
its burden of manifold and faithful affection at the feet 
of the Almighty Father, still remembering whence it 
came, — 

" That friend of mine who lives in God, 
That God which ever lives and loves ; 
One God, one law, one element, 
And one far-off divine event, 
To which the whole creation moves." 

It is to that chancel, and to the day, 3d January, 1834, 
that he refers in poem xvin. of In Memoriam. 

" 'Tis well, 'tis something, we may stand 
Where he in English earth is laid, 
And from his ashes may be made 
The violet of his native land. 

" 'Tis little; but it looks in truth 
As if the quiet bones were blest 
Among familiar names to rest, 
And in the places of his youth." 



ARTHUR H. HALLAM. 247 



And again in xix. : — 



" The Danube to the Severn gave 

The darken'd heart that beat no more; 
They laid him by the pleasant shore, 
And in the hearing of the wave. 

" There twice a day the Severn fills, 
The salt sea-water passes by, 
And hushes half the babbling Wye, 
And makes a silence in the hills." 



Here, too, it is, lxvi. : — 

" When on my bed the moonlight falls, 
I know that in thy place of rest, 
By that broad water of the west; 
There comes a glory on the walls : 

" Thy marble bright in dark appears, 
As slowly steals a silver flame 
Along the letters of thy name, 
And o'er the number of thy years." 

This young man, whose memory his friend has con- 
secrated in the hearts of all who can be touched by such 
love and beauty, was in nowise unworthy of all this. It 
is not for us to say, for it was not given to us the sad 
privilege to know, all that a father's heart buried with 
his son in that grave, all " the hopes of unaccomplished 
years;" nor can we feel in its fulness all that is meant by 

" Such 
A friendship as had mastered Time ; 
Which masters Time indeed, and is 

Eternal, separate from fears. 

The all-assuming months and years 
Can take no part away from this." 

But this we may say, we know of nothing in all litera- 
ture to compare with the volume from which these lines 
are taken, since David lamented with this lamentation : 
" The beauty of Israel is slain. Ye mountains of Gilboa, 



248 REMAINS OF 

let there be no dew, neither rain upon you. I am dis- 
tressed for thee, my brother Jonathan : very pleasant hast 
thou been unto me ; thy love for me was wonderful." 
We cannot, as some have done, compare it with Shak- 
speare's sonnets, or with Lycidas. In spite of the amaz- 
ing genius and tenderness, the never-wearying, all-in- 
volving reiteration of passionate attachment, the idolatry 
of admiring love, the rapturous devotedness, displayed in 
these sonnets, we cannot but agree with Mr. Hallam in 
thinking, " that there is a tendency now, especially among 
young men of poetical tempers, to exaggerate the beau- 
ties of these remarkable productions ; " and though we 
would hardly say with him, " that it is impossible not to 
wish that Shakspeare had never written them," giving 
us, as they do, and as perhaps nothing else could do, such 
proof of a power of loving, of an amount of attendrisse- 
me?it, which is not less wonderful than the bodying forth 
of that myriad-mind which gave us Hamlet, and Lear, 
Cordelia, and Puck, and all the rest, and indeed explain- 
ing to us how he could give us all these ; — while we 
hardly go so far, we agree with his other wise words : — 
" There is a weakness and folly in all misplaced and 
excessive affection ; " which in Shakspeare's case is the 
more distressing, when we consider that " Mr. W. H., 
the only begetter of these ensuing sonnets," was, in all 
likelihood, William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, a man 
of noble and gallant character, but always of licentious 
life. 

As for Lycidas, we must confess that the poetry — 
and we all know how consummate it is — and not the 
affection, seems uppermost in Milton's mind, as it is in 
ours. The other element, though quick and true, has no 
glory through reason of the excellency of that which 



ARTHUR H. HALLAM. 249 

invests it. But there is no such drawback in In Memo- 
riam. The purity, the temperate but fervent goodness, 
the firmness and depth of nature, the impassioned logic, 
the large, sensitive, and liberal heart, the reverence and 
godly fear, of 

" That friend of mine who lives in God," 

which from these Kemains we know to have dwelt in 
that young soul, give to In Memoriam the character of 
exactest portraiture. There is no excessive or misplaced 
affection here ; it is all founded in fact ; while every- 
where and throughout it all, affection — a love that is 
wonderful — meets us first and leaves us last, giving 
form and substance and grace, and the breath of life and 
love, to everything that the poet's thick-coming fancies so 
exquisitely frame. We can recall few poems approach- 
ing to it in this quality of sustained affection. The only 
English poems we can think of as of the same order, are 
Cowper's lines on seeing his mother's portrait : — 

" that these lips had language ! " 

Burns to " Mary in Heaven ; " and two pieces of Vaughan 
— one beginning 

" thou who know'st for whom I mourn; " 
and the other — 

"They are all gone into the world of light." 

But our object now is, not so much to illustrate Mr. Ten- 
nyson's verses, as to introduce to our readers what we 
ourselves have got so much delight, and, we trust, profit 
from — The Remains, in Verse and Prose, of Arthur 
Henry ffallam, 1834; privately printed. We had for 
many years been searching for this volume, but in vain ; 



250 REMAINS OF 

a sentence quoted by Henry Taylor struck us, and our 
desire was quickened by reading In Memoriam. We do 
not remember when we have been more impressed than 
by these Remains of this young man, especially when 
taken along with his friend's Memorial ; and instead of 
trying to tell our readers what this impression is, we have 
preferred giving them as copious extracts as our space 
allows, that they may judge and enjoy for themselves. 
The italics are our own. We can promise them few 
finer, deeper, and better pleasures than reading, and de- 
taining their minds over these two books together, filling 
their hearts with the fulness of their truth and tenderness. 
They will see how accurate as well as how affectionate 
and "of imagination all compact" Tennyson is, and how 
worthy of all that he has said of him, that friend was. 
The likeness is drawn ad vivum, — 

" When to the sessions of sweet silent thought 
He summons up remembrance of things past." 

" The idea of his Life " has been sown a natural body, 
and has been raised a spiritual body, but the identity is 
unhurt ; the countenance shines and the raiment is w T hite 
and glistering, but it is the same face and form. 

The Memoir is by Mr. Hallam. We give it entire, 
not knowing anywhere a nobler or more touching record 
of a father's love and sorrow. 

" Arthur Henry Hallam was born in Bedford Place, 1 

i " Dark house, by which once more I stand 
Here in the long unlovely street; 
Doors, where my heart was wont to beat 
So quickly, waiting for a hand." — In Memoriam. 

This is a mistake, as his friend Dr. A. P. Stanley thus corrects: — 
" 4 The long unlovely street ' was Wimpole Street, No. 67, where the 



ARTHUR H. HALLAM. 251 

London, on the 1st of February, 1811. Very few years 
had elapsed before his parents observed strong indica- 
tions of his future character, in a peculiar clearness of 
perception, a facility of acquiring knowledge, and, above 
all, in an undeviating sweetness of disposition, and ad- 
herence to his sense of what was right and becoming. 
As he advanced to another stage of childhood, it was 
rendered still more manifest that he would be distin- 
guished from ordinary persons, by an increasing thought- 
fulness, and a fondness for a class of books, which in 
general are so little intelligible to boys of his age, that 
they excite in them no kind of interest. 

" In the summer of 1818 he spent some months with 
his parents in Germany and Switzerland, and became 
familiar with the French language, which he had already 
learned to read with facility. He had gone through the 
elements of Latin before this time ; but that language 
having been laid aside during his tour, it was found 
upon his return that, a variety of new scenes having 
effaced it from his memory, it was necessary to begin 
again with the first rudiments. He was nearly eight 
years old at this time ; and in little more than twelve 
months he could read Latin with tolerable facility. In 
this period his mind was developing itself more rapidly 
than before ; he now felt a keen relish for dramatic poe- 
try, and wrote several tragedies, if we may so call them, 
either in prose or verse, with a more precocious display 
of talents than the Editor remembers to have met with 
in any other individual. The natural pride, however, of 
his parents, did not blind them to the uncertainty that 
• belongs to all premature efforts of the mind ; and they 

Hallams lived; and Arthur used to say to his friends, ' You know you 
will always find us at sixes and sevens.' " 



252 , REMAINS OF 

so carefully avoided everything like a boastful display of 
blossoms which, in many cases, have withered away in 
barren luxuriance, that the circumstance of these composi- 
tions was hardly ever mentioned out of their own family. 
" In the spring of 1820, Arthur was placed under the 
Rev. W. Carmalt, at Putney, where he remained nearly 
two years. After leaving this school he went abroad 
again for some months ; and in October, 1822, became 
the pupil of the Rev. E. C. Hawtrey, an Assistant Master 
of Eton College. At Eton he continued till the summer 
of 1827. He was now become a good though not per- 
haps a first-rate scholar in the Latin and Greek lan- 
guages. The loss of time, relatively to this object, in 
travelling, but far more his increasing avidity for a dif- 
ferent kind of knowledge, and the strong bent of his 
mind to subjects which exercise other faculties than such 
as the acquirement of languages calls into play, will suf- 
ficiently account for what might seem a comparative 
deficiency in classical learning. It can only, however, 
be reckoned one, comparatively to his other attainments, 
and to his remarkable facility in mastering the modern 
languages. The Editor has thought it not improper to 
print in the following pages an Eton exercise, which, as 
written before the age of fourteen, though not free from 
metrical and other errors, appears, perhaps to a partial 
judgment, far above the level of such compositions. It 
is remarkable that he should have selected the story of 
Ugolino, from a poet with whom, and with whose lan- 
guage, he was then but very slightly acquainted, but who 
was afterwards to become, more perhaps than any other, 
the master-mover of his spirit. It may be added, that 
great judgment and taste are perceptible in this transla- 
tion, which is by no means a literal one ; and in which 



ARTHUR H. HALLAM. 253 

the phraseology of Sophocles is not ill substituted, in 
some passages, for that of Dante. 

" The Latin poetry of an Etonian is generally reck- 
oned at that School the chief test of his literary talent. 
That of Arthur was good without being excellent ; he 
never wanted depth of thought, or truth of feeling ; but 
it is only in a few rare instances, if altogether in any, 
that an original mind has been known to utter itself 
freely and vigorously, without sacrifice of purity, in a 
language the capacities of which are so imperfectly un- 
derstood ; and in his productions there was not the 
thorough conformity to an ancient model which is re- 
quired for perfect elegance in Latin verse. He took no 
great pleasure in this sort of composition ; and perhaps 
never returned to it of his own accord. 

" In the latter part of his residence at Eton, he was 
led away more and more by the predominant bias of his 
mind, from the exclusive study of ancient literature. 
The poets of England, especially the older dramatists, 
came with greater attraction over his spirit. He loved 
Fletcher, and some of Fletcher's contemporaries, for 
their energy of language and intenseness of feeling ; but 
it was in Shakspeare alone that he found the fulness 
of soul which seemed to slake the thirst of his own rap- 
idly expanding genius for an inexhaustible fountain of 
thought and emotion. He knew Shakspeare thoroughly ; 
and indeed his acquaintance with the earlier poetry of 
this country was very extensive. Among the modern 
poets, Byron was at this time, far above the rest, and 
almost exclusively, his favorite ; a preference which, in 
later years, he transferred altogether to Wordsworth and 
Shelley. 

" He became, when about fifteen years old, a member 



254 REMAINS OF 

of the debating society established among the elder boys, 
in which he took great interest ; and this served to con- 
firm the bias of his intellect towards the moral and 
political philosophy of modern times. It was probably, 
however, of important utility in giving him that com- 
mand of his own language which he possessed, as the 
following Essays will show, in a very superior degree, 
and in exercising those powers of argumentative discus- 
sion, which now displayed themselves as eminently char- 
acteristic of his mind. It was a necessary consequence 
that he declined still more from the usual paths of study, 
and abated perhaps somewhat of his regard for the writ- 
ers of antiquity. It must not be understood, neverthe- 
less, as most of those who read these pages will be 
aware, that he ever lost his sensibility to those ever-liv- 
ing effusions of genius which the ancient languages 
preserve. He loved iEschylus and Sophocles (to Eu- 
ripides he hardly did justice), Lucretius and Virgil ; 
if he did not seem so much drawn towards Homer as 
might at first be expected, this may probably be ac- 
counted for by his increasing taste for philosophical 
poetry. 

" In the early part of 1827, Arthur took a part in 
the Eton Miscellany, a periodical publication, in which 
some of his friends in the debating society were con- 
cerned. He wrote in this, besides a few papers in prose, 
a little poem on a story connected with the Lake of Kil- 
larney. It has not been thought by the Editor advisable, 
upon the whole, to reprint these lines ; though, in his 
opinion, they bear very striking marks of superior pow- 
ers. This was almost the first poetry that Arthur had 
written, except the childish tragedies above mentioned. 
No one was ever less inclined to the trick of versifying. 



ARTHUR H. HALLAM. 255 

Poetry with him was not an amusement, but the natural 
and almost necessary language of genuine emotion ; and 
it was not till the discipline of serious reflection, and the 
approach of manhood, gave a reality and intenseness to 
such emotions, that he learned the capacities of his own 
genius. That he was a poet by nature, these Remains 
will sufficiently prove ; but certainly he was far removed 
from being a versifier by nature ; nor was he probably 
able to perform, what he scarce ever attempted, to write 
easily and elegantly on an ordinary subject. The lines 
on the story of Pygmalion are so far an exception, that 
they arose out of a momentary amusement of society ; 
but he could not avoid, even in these, his own grave 
tone of poetry. 

" Upon leaving Eton in the summer of 1827, he ac- 
companied his parents to the Continent, and passed eight 
months in Italy. This introduction to new scenes of 
nature and art, and to new sources of intellectual delight, 
at the very period of transition from boyhood to youth, 
sealed no doubt the peculiar character of his mind, and 
taught him, too soon for his peace, to sound those depths 
of thought and feeling, from which, after this time, all 
that he wrote was derived. He had, when he passed 
the Alps, only a moderate acquaintance with the Italian 
language ; but during his residence in the country he 
came to speak it with perfect fluency, and with a pure 
Sienese pronunciation. In its study he was much as- 
sisted by his friend and instructor, the Abbate Pifferi, 
who encouraged him to his first attempts at versification. 
The few sonnets, which are now printed, were, it is to 
be remembered, written by a foreigner, hardly seventeen 
years old, and after a very short stay in Italy. The 
Editor might not, probably, have suffered them to ap- 



256 REMAINS OF 

pear, even in this private manner, upon his own judg- 
ment. But he knew that the greatest living writer of 
Italy, to whom they were shown some time since at 
Milan, by the author's excellent friend, Mr. Eichard 
Milnes, has expressed himself in terms of high appro- 
bation. 

" The growing intimacy of Arthur with Italian poetry 
led him naturally to that of Dante. No poet was so 
congenial to the character of his own reflective mind ; 
in none other could he so abundantly find that disdain 
of flowery redundance, that perpetual preference of the 
sensible to the ideal, that aspiration for somewhat better 
and less fleeting than earthly things, to which his inmost 
soul responded. Like all genuine worshippers of the 
great Florentine poet, he rated the Inferno below the 
two latter portions of the Divina Commedia ; there was 
nothing even to revolt his taste, but rather much to at- 
tract it, in the scholastic theology and mystic visions of 
the Paradiso. Petrarch he greatly admired, though 
with less idolatry than Dante ; and the sonnets here 
printed will show to all competent judges how fully he 
had imbibed the spirit, without servile centonism, of the 
best writers in that style of composition who flourished 
in the 16th century. 

" But poetry was not an absorbing passion at this time 
in his mind. His eyes were fixed on the best pictures 
with silent intense delight. He had a deep and just 
perception of what was beautiful in this art, at least in 
its higher schools ; for he did not pay much regard, or 
perhaps quite do justice, to the masters of the 17th cen- 
tury. To technical criticism he made no sort of preten- 
sion ; painting was to him but the visible language of 
emotion ; and where it did not aim at exciting it, or 



ARTHUR H. HALLAM. 257 

employed inadequate means, his admiration would be 
withheld. Hence he highly prized the ancient paintings, 
both Italian and German, of the age which preceded the 
full development of art. But he was almost as enthu- 
siastic an admirer of the Venetian, as of the Tuscan 
and Roman schools ; considering these masters as reach- 
ing the same end by the different agencies of form and 
color. This predilection for the sensitive beauties of 
painting is somewhat analogous to his fondness for har- 
mony of verse, on which he laid more stress than poets 
so thoughtful are apt to do. In one of the last days of 
his life, he lingered long among the fine Venetian pic- 
tures of the Imperial Gallery at Vienna. 

" He returned to England in June, 1828 ; and, in the 
following October, went down to reside at Cambridge ; 
having been entered on the boards of Trinity College 
before his departure to the Continent. He was the 
pupil of the Rev. William Whewell. In some respects, 
as soon became manifest, he was not formed to obtain 
great academical reputation. An acquaintance with the 
learned languages, considerable at the school where he 
was educated, but not improved, to say the least, by 
the intermission of a year, during which his mind had 
been so occupied by other pursuits, that he had thought 
little of antiquity even in Rome itself, though abundantly 
sufficient for the gratification of taste and the acquisition 
of knowledge, was sure to prove inadequate to the search- 
ing scrutiny of modern examinations. He soon, there- 
fore, saw reason to renounce all competition of this kind ; 
nor did he ever so much as attempt any Greek or Latin 
composition during his stay at Cambridge. In truth he 
was very indifferent to success of this kind ; and con- 
scious as he must have been of a high reputation among 
17 



258 REMAINS OF 

his contemporaries, he could not think that he stood in 
need of any University distinctions. The Editor became 
by degrees almost equally indifferent to what he per- 
ceived to be so uncongenial to Arthur's mind. It was 
however to be regretted, that he never paid the least 
attention to mathematical studies. That he should not 
prosecute them with the diligence usual at Cambridge, 
was of course to be expected ; yet his clearness and 
acumen would certainly have enabled him to master the 
principles of geometrical reasoning ; nor, in fact, did he 
so much find a difficulty in apprehending demonstrations, 
as a want of interest, and a consequent inability to retain 
them in his memory. A little more practice in the strict 
logic of geometry, a little more familiarity with the physi- 
cal laws of the universe, and the phenomena to which 
they relate, would possibly have repressed the tendency 
to vague and mystical speculations which he was too 
fond of indulging. In the philosophy of the human mind, 
he was in no danger of the materializing theories of 
some ancient and modern schools ; but in shunning this 
extreme, he might sometimes forget that, in the honest 
pursuit of truth, we can shut our eyes to no real phe- 
nomena, and that the physiology of man must always 
enter into any valid scheme of his psychology. 

" The comparative inferiority which he might show 
in the usual trials of knowledge, sprung in a great 
measure from the want of a prompt and accurate mem- 
ory. It was the faculty wherein he shone the least, 
according to ordinary observation ; though his very ex- 
tensive reach of literature, and his rapidity in acquiring 
languages, sufficed to prove that it was capable of being 
largely exercised. He could remember anything, as a 
friend observed to the Editor, that was associated with 



ARTHUR H. HALLAM. 259 

an idea. But he seemed, at least after he reached man- 
hood, to want almost wholly the power, so common with 
inferior understandings, of retaining with regularity and 
exactness, a number of unimportant uninteresting partic- 
ulars. It would have been nearly impossible to make 
him recollect for three days the date of the battle of 
Marathon, or the names in order of the Athenian months. 
Nor could he repeat poetry, much as he loved it, with 
the correctness often found in young men. It is not 
improbable, that a more steady discipline in early life 
would have strengthened this faculty, or that he might 
have supplied its deficiency by some technical devices ; 
but where the higher powers of intellect were so extra- 
ordinarily manifested, it would have been preposterous 
to complain of what may perhaps have been a necessary 
consequence of their amplitude, or at least a natural 
result of their exercise. 

" But another reason may be given for his deficiency 
in those unremitting labors which the course of academi- 
cal education, in the present times, is supposed to exact 
from those who aspire to its distinctions. In the first 
year of his residence at Cambridge, symptoms of dis- 
ordered health, especially in the circulatory system, began 
to show themselves ; and it is by no means improbable, 
that these were indications of a tendency to derangement 
of the vital functions, which become ultimately fatal. 
A too rapid determination of blood towards the brain, 
with its concomitant uneasy sensations, rendered him 
frequently incapable of mental fatigue. He had indeed 
once before, at Florence, been affected by symptoms not 
unlike these. His intensity of reflection and feeling also 
brought on occasionally a considerable depression of spirits, 
which had been painfully observed at times by those who 



260 REMAINS OF 

watched him most, from the time of his leaving Eton, and 
even before. It was not till after several months that 
he regained a less morbid condition of mind and body. 
This same irregularity of circulation returned again in 
the next spring, but was of less duration. During the 
third year of his Cambridge life, he appeared in much 
better health. 

" In this year (1831) he obtained the first college prize 
for an English declamation. The subject chosen by him 
was the conduct of the Independent party during the 
civil war. This exercise was greatly admired at the 
time, but was never printed. In consequence of this 
success, it became incumbent on him, according to the 
custom of the college, to deliver an oration in the chapel 
immediately before the Christmas vacation of the same 
year. On this occasion he selected a subject very con- 
genial to his own turn of thought and favorite study, the 
influence of Italian upon English literature. He had 
previously gained another prize for an English essay on 
the philosophical writings of Cicero. This essay is per- 
haps too excursive from the prescribed subject ; but his 
mind was so deeply imbued with the higher philosophy, 
especially that of Plato, with which he was very con- 
versant, that he could not be expected to dwell much on 
the praises of Cicero in that respect. 

" Though the bent of Arthur's mind by no means 
inclined him to strict research into facts, he was full 
as much conversant with the great features of ancient 
and modern history, as from the course of his other 
studies and the habits of his life it was possible to ex- 
pect. He reckoned them, as great minds always do, 
the groundworks of moral and political philosophy, and 
took no pains to acquire any knowledge of this sort from 



ARTHUR H. HALLAM. 261 

which a principle could not be derived or illustrated. To 
some parts of English history, and to that of the French 
Revolution, he had paid considerable attention. He had 
not read nearly so much of the Greek and Latin histo- 
rians as of the philosophers and poets. In the history of 
literary, and especially of philosophical and religious opin- 
ions, he was deeply versed, as much so as it is possible to 
apply that term at his age. The following pages exhibit 
proofs of an acquaintance, not crude or superficial, with 
that important branch of literature. 

" His political judgments were invariably prompted by 
his strong sense of right and justice. These, in so young 
a person, were naturally rather fluctuating, and subject 
to the correction of advancing knowledge and experience. 
Ardent in the cause of those he deemed to be oppressed, 
of which, in one instance, he was led to give a proof with 
more of energy and enthusiasm than discretion, he was 
deeply attached to the ancient institutions of his country. 

" He spoke French readily, though with less elegance 
than Italian, till from disuse he lost much of his fluency 
in the latter. In his last fatal tour in Germany, he was 
rapidly acquiring a readiness in the language of that 
country. The whole range of French literature was al- 
most as familiar to him as that of England. 

" The society in which Arthur lived most intimately, at 
Eaton and at the University, was formed of young men, 
eminent for natural ability, and for delight in what he 
sought above all things, the knowledge of truth, and the 
perception of beauty. They who loved and admired him 
living, and who now revere his sacred memory, as of one 
to whom, in the fondness of regret, they admit of no 
rival, know best what he was in the daily commerce of 
life ; and his eulogy should, on every account, better come 



262 REMAINS OF 

from hearts, which, if partial, have been rendered so by 
the experience of friendship, not by the affection of na- 
ture. 

"Arthur left Cambridge on taking his degree in Janu- 
ary 1832. He resided from that time with the Editor 
in London, having been entered on the boards of the In- 
ner Temple. It was greatly the desire of the Editor 
that he should engage himself in the study of the law ; 
not merely with professional views, but as a useful dis- 
cipline for a mind too much occupied with habits of 
thought, which, ennobling and important as they were, 
could not but separate him from the every-day business 
of life, and might, by their excess, in his susceptible tem- 
perament, be productive of considerable mischief. He 
had, during the previous long vacation, read with the 
Editor the Institutes of Justinian, and the two works 
of Heineccius which illustrate them ; and he now went 
through Blackstone's Commentaries, with as much of 
other law-books as, in the Editor's judgment, was re- 
quired for a similar purpose. It was satisfactory at 
that time to perceive that, far from showing any of that 
distaste to legal studies which might have been antici- 
pated from some parts of his intellectual character, he 
entered upon them not only with great acuteness, but 
considerable interest. In the month of October 1832, he 
began to see the practical application of legal knowledge 
in the office of an eminent conveyancer, Mr. Walters of 
Lincoln's Inn Fields, with whom he continued till his 
departure from England in the following summer. 

" It was not, however, to be expected, or even desired 
by any who knew how to value him, that he should at 
once abandon those habits of study which had fertilized 
and invigorated his mind. But he now, from some 



ARTHUR H. HALL AM. 263 

change or other in his course of thinking, ceased in a 
great measure to write poetry, and expressed to more 
than one friend an intention to give it up. The instances 
after his leaving Cambridge were few. The dramatic 
scene between Raffaelle and Fiammetta was written 
in 1832 ; and about the same time he had a design to 
translate the Vita Nuova of his favorite Dante ; a work 
which he justly prized, as the development of that im- 
mense genius, in a kind of autobiography, which best 
prepares us for a real insight into the Divine Comedy. 
He rendered accordingly into verse most of the sonnets 
which the Vita Nuova contains ; but the Editor does not 
believe that he made any progress in the prose trans- 
lation. These sonnets appearing rather too literal, and 
consequently harsh, it has not been thought worth while 
to print. 

"In the summer of 1832, the appearance of Professor 
Rosetti's Disquisizioni sullo spirito Antipapale, in which 
the writings of Arthur's beloved masters, Dante and Pe- 
trarch, as well as most of the mediaeval literature of Italy, 
were treated as a series of enigmas, to be understood only 
by a key that discloses a latent Carbonarism, a secret con- 
spiracy against the religion of their age, excited him to 
publish his own Remarks in reply. It seemed to him the 
worst of poetical heresies to desert the Absolute, the Uni- 
versal, the Eternal, the Beautiful and True, which the 
Platonic spirit of his literary creed taught him to seek in 
all the higher works of genius, in quest of some tempo- 
rary historical allusion, which could be of no interest with 
posterity. Nothing, however, could be more alien from 
his courteous disposition than to abuse the license of con- 
troversy, or to treat with intentional disrespect a very in- 
genious person, who had been led on too far in pursuing 



264 REMAINS OF 

a course of interpretation, which, within certain much 
narrower limits, it is impossible for any one conversant 
with history not to admit. 

"A very few other anonymous writings occupied his 
leisure about this time. Among these were slight me- 
moirs of Petrarch, Voltaire, and Burke, for the Gallery 
of Portraits, published by the Society for the Diffusion 
of Useful Knowledge. 1 His time was, however, princi- 
pally devoted, when not engaged at his office, to meta- 
physical researches, and to the history of philosophical 
opinions. 

" From the latter part of his residence at Cambridge, a 
gradual but very perceptible improvement in the cheer- 
fulness of his spirits gladdened his family and his friends ; 
intervals there doubtless were, when the continual seri- 
ousness of his habits of thought, or the force of circum- 
stances, threw something more of gravity into his de- 
meanor ; but in general he was animated and even gay, 
renewing or preserving his intercourse with some of 
those he had most valued at Eton and Cambridge. The 
symptoms of deranged circulation which had manifested 



1 We had read these Lives, and had remarked thein, before we knew 
whose they were, as being of rare merit. Xo one conld suppose they 
were written by one so young. We give his estimate of the character 
of Burke. " The mind of this great man may perhaps be taken as a 
representation of the general characteristics of the English intellect. 
Its groundwork was solid, practical, and conversant with the details of 
business ; but upon this, and secured by this, arose a superstructure of 
imagination and moral sentiment. He saw little, because it was painful 
to Mm to see anything beyond the limits of the national character. In 
all things, while he deeply reverenced principles, he chose to deal with 
the concrete rather than with abstractions. He studied men rather 
than man." The words in italics imply an insight into the deepest 
springs of human action, the conjunct causes of what we call character, 
such as few men of large experience can attain. 



ARTHUR H. HALL AM. 265 

themselves before, ceased to appear, or at least so as to 
excite his own attention ; and though it struck those who 
were most anxious in watching him, that his power of 
enduring fatigue was not quite so great as from his frame 
of body and apparent robustness might have been an- 
ticipated, nothing gave the least indication of danger 
either to their eyes, or to those of the medical practition- 
ers who were in the habit of observing him. An attack 
of intermittent fever, during the prevalent influenza of 
the spring of 1833, may perhaps have disposed his con- 
stitution to the last fatal blow." 

To any one who has watched the history of the disease 
by which " so quick this bright thing came to confusion," 
and who knows how near its subject must often, perhaps 
all his life, have been to that eternity which occupied so 
much of his thoughts and desires, and the secrets of 
which were so soon to open on his young eyes, there 
is something very touching in this account. Such a state 
of health would enhance, and tend to produce, by the 
sensations proper to such a condition, that habitual seri- 
ousness of thought, that sober judgment, and that ten- 
dency to look at the true life of things — that deep but 
gentle and calm sadness, and that occasional sinking of 
the heart, which make his noble and strong inner nature, 
his resolved mind, so much more impressive and endear- 
ing. 

This feeling of personal insecurity — of life being 
ready to slip away — the sensation that this world and 
its ongoings, its mighty interests, and delicate joys, is 
ready to be shut up in a moment — this instinctive ap- 
prehension of the peril of vehement bodily enjoyment — 
all this would tend to make him " walk softly," and to 
keep him from much of the evil that is in the world, and 



266 REMAINS OF 

would help him to live soberly, righteously, and godly, 
even in the bright and rich years of his youth. His 
power of giving himself up to the search after absolute 
truth, and the contemplation of Supreme goodness, must 
have been increased by this same organization. But all 
this delicate- feeling, this fineness of sense, did rather 
quicken the energy and fervor of the indwelling soul — 
the tl Ocp/jLov 77-pay/xa, that burned within. In the quaint 
words of Vaughan, it was " manhood with a female eye." 
These two conditions must, as we have said, have made 
him dear indeed. And by a beautiful law of life, having 
that organ out of which are the issues of life, under a 
sort of perpetual nearness to suffering, and so liable to 
pain, he would be more easily moved for others — more 
alive to their pain — more filled with fellow-feeling. 

" The Editor cannot dwell on anything later. Arthur 
accompanied him to Germany in the beginning of Au- 
gust. In returning to Vienna from Pesth, a wet day 
probably gave rise to an intermittent fever, with very 
slight symptoms, and apparently subsiding, when a sud- 
den rush of blood to the head put an instantaneous end 
to his life on the 15th of September 1833. The mys- 
teriousness of such a dreadful termination to a disorder 
generally of so little importance, and in this instance of 
the slightest kind, has been diminished by an examina- 
tion which showed a weakness of the cerebral vessels, 
and a want of sufficient energy in the heart. Those 
whose eyes must long be dim with tears, and whose 
hopes on this side the tomb are broken down forever, 
may cling, as well as they can, to the poor consolation 
of believing that a few more years would, in the usual 
chances of humanity, have severed the frail union of his 
graceful and manly form with the pure spirit that it en- 
shrined. 



ARTHUR H. HALLAM. 267 

" The remains of Arthur were brought to England, 
and interred on the 3d of January 1834, in the chancel 
of Clevedon Church in Somersetshire, belonging to his 
maternal grandfather Sir Abraham Elton, a place se- 
lected by the Editor, not only from the connection of 
kindred, but on account of its still and sequestered sit- 
uation, on a lone hill that overhangs the Bristol Chan- 
nel. 

u More ought perhaps to be said — but it is very dif- 
ficult to proceed. From the earliest years of this ex- 
traordinary young man, his premature abilities were 
not more conspicuous than an almost faultless disposi- 
tion, sustained by a more calm self-command than has 
often been witnessed in that season of life. The sweet- 
ness of temper which distinguished his childhood, be- 
came with the advance of manhood a habitual benevo- 
lence, and ultimately ripened into that exalted principle 
of love towards God and man, which animated and al- 
most absorbed his soul during the latter period of his 
life, and to which most of the following compositions 
bear such emphatic testimony. He seemed to tread the 
earth as a spirit from some better world ; and in bowing 
to the mysterious will which has in mercy removed him, 
perfected by so short a trial, and passing over the bridge 
which separates the seen from the unseen life, in a mo- 
ment, and, as we may believe, without a moment's pang, 
we must feel not only the bereavement of those to whom 
he w r as dear, but the loss which mankind have sustained 
by the withdrawing of such a light. 

"A considerable portion of the poetry contained in 
this volume was printed in the year 1830, and was in- 
tended by the author to be published together with the 
poems of his intimate friend, Mr. Alfred Tennyson. 



268 REMAINS OF 

They were however withheld from publication at the 
request of the Editor. The poem of Timbuctoo was 
written for the University prize in 1829, which it did 
not obtain. Notwithstanding its too great obscurity, the 
subject itself being hardly indicated, and the extremely 
hyperbolical importance which the author's brilliant 
fancy has attached to a nest of barbarians, no one can 
avoid admiring the grandeur of his conceptions, and the 
deep philosophy upon which he has built the scheme 
of his poem. This is however by no means the most 
pleasing of his compositions. It is in the profound re- 
flection, the melancholy tenderness, and the religious 
sanctity of other effusions that a lasting charm will be 
found. A commonplace subject, such as those an- 
nounced for academical prizes generally are, was inca- 
pable of exciting a mind which, beyond almost every 
other, went straight to the farthest depths that the hu- 
man intellect can fathom, or from which human feelings 
can be drawn. Many short poems of equal beauty with 
those here printed, have been deemed unfit even for the 
limited circulation they might obtain, on account of their 
unveiling more of emotion than, consistently with what 
is clue to him and to others, could be exposed to view. 

" The two succeeding essays have never been printed ; 
but were read, it is believed, in a literary society at 
Trinity College, or in one to which he afterwards be- 
longed in London. That entitled Theodiccea Novissima, 
is printed at the desire of some of his intimate friends. 
A few expressions in it want his usual precision ; and 
there are ideas which he might have seen cause, in the 
lapse of time, to modify, independently of what his very 
acute mind would probably have perceived, that his 
hypothesis, like that of Leibnitz, on the origin of evil, 



ARTHUR H. HALLAM. 269 

resolves itself at last into an unproved assumption of its 
necessity. It has however some advantages, which need 
not be mentioned, over that of Leibnitz ; and it is here 
printed, not as a solution of the greatest mystery of the 
universe, but as most characteristic of the author's mind, 
original and sublime, uniting, what is very rare except 
in early youth, a fearless and unblenching spirit of in- 
quiry into the highest objects of speculation, with the 
most humble and reverential piety. It is probable that 
in many of his views on such topics he was influenced 
by the writings of Jonathan Edwards, with whose opin- 
ions on metaphysical and moral subjects, he seems gen- 
erally to have concurred. 

" The extract from a review of Tennyson's poems in 
a publication now extinct, the Englishman's Magazine, 
is also printed at the suggestion of a friend. The pieces 
that follow are reprints, and have been already men- 
tioned in this Memoir." 

We have given this Memoir almost entire, for the 
sake both of its subject and its manner — for what in it 
is the father's as well as for what is the son's. There 
is something very touching in the paternal composure, 
the judiciousness, the truthfulness, where truth is so dif- 
ficult to reach through tears, the calm estimate and the 
subdued tenderness, the ever-rising but ever restrained 
emotion ; the father's heart throbs throughout. 

We wish we could have given in full the letters from 
Arthur's friends, which his father has incorporated in the 
Memoir. They all bring out in different but harmoni- 
ous ways, his extraordinary moral and intellectual worth, 
his rare beauty of character, and their deep affection. 

The following extract from one seems to us very in- 
teresting : — " Outwardly I do not think there was any- 



270 REMAINS OF 

thing remarkable in his habits, except an irregularity 
with regard to times and places of study, which may seem 
surprising in one whose progress in so many directions 
was so eminently great and rapid. He ivas commonly to 
be found in some friend's room, reading, or canvassing. 
I dare say he lost something by this irregularity, but less 
than perhaps one would at first imagine. I never saw 
him idle. He might seem to be lounging, or only 
amusing himself, but his mind was always active, and 
active for good. In fact, his energy and quickness of 
apprehension did not stand in need of outward aid." 
There is much in this worthy of more extended notice. 
Such minds as his probably grow best in this way, are 
best left to themselves to glide on at their own sweet 
wills ; the stream was too deep and clear, and perhaps 
too entirely bent on its own errand, to be dealt with or 
regulated by any art or device. The same friend sums 
up his character thus: — "I have met with no man his 
superior in metaphysical subtlety ; no man his equal as 
a philosophical critic on works of taste ; no man whose 
views on all subjects connected with the duties and dig- 
nities of humanity were more large, and generous, and 
enlightened." And all this said of a youth of twenty — 
heu nimium brevis cevi decus et desiderium ! 

We have given little of this verse ; and what we do 
give is taken at random. We agree entirely in his fath- 
er's estimate of his poetical gift and art, but his mind 
was too serious, too thoughtful, too intensely dedicated to 
truth and the God of truth, to linger long in the pursuit 
of beauty ; he was on his way to God, and could rest in 
nothing short of Him, otherwise he might have been a 
poet of genuine excellence. 



ARTHUR H. HALLAM. 271 

" Dark, dark, yea, ' irrecoverably dark, 
Is the soul's eye; yet how it strives and battles 
Thorough th' impenetrable gloom to fix 
That master light, the secret truth of things, 
Which is the body of the infinite God ! " 

" Sure, we are leaves of one harmonious bower, 
Fed by a sap that never will be scant, 
All-permeating, all-producing mind; 
And in our several parcellings of doom 
We but fulfil the beauty of the whole. 
Oh, madness ! if a leaf should dare complain 
Of its dark verdure, and aspire to be 
The gayer, brighter thing that wantons near." 

11 Oh, blessing and delight of my young heart, 

Maiden, who wast so lovely, and so pure, 

I know not in what region now thou art, 

Or whom thy gentle eyes in joy assure. 
Not the old hills on which we gazed together, 

Not the old faces which we both did love, 

Not the old books, whence knowledge we did gather, 

Not these, but others now thy fancies move. 
I would I knew thy present hopes and fears, 

All thy companions with their pleasant talk, 

And the clear aspect which thy dwelling wears: 
So, though in body absent, I might walk 

W r ith thee in thought and feeling, till thy mood 

Did sanctify mine own to peerless good." 

" Alfred, I would that you beheld me now, 
Sitting beneath a mossy ivied wall 
On a quaint bench, which to that structure old 
Winds an accordant curve. Above my head 
Dilates immeasurable a wild of leaves, 
Seeming received into the blue expanse 
That vaults this summer noon." 

" Still here — thou hast not faded from my sight, 
Nor all the music round thee from mine ear ; 
Still grace flows from thee to the brightening year, 
And all the birds laugh out in wealthier light. 
Still am I free to close my happy eyes, 
And paint upon the gloom thy mimic form, 
That soft white neck, that cheek in beauty warm, 



272 REMAINS OF 

And brow half hidden where yon ringlet lies : 
With, oh ! the blissful knowledge all the while 

That I can lift at will each curved lid, 

And my fair dream most highly realize. 
The time will come, 'tis ushered by my sighs, 

When I may shape the dark, but vainly bid 

True light restore that form, those looks, that smile." 

" The garden trees are busy with the shower 

That fell ere sunset : now methinks they talk, 

Lowly and sweetly as befits the hour, 

One to another down the grassy walk. 
Hark the laburnum from his opening flower, 

This cherry creeper greets in whisper light, 

While the grim fir, rejoicing in the night, 

Hoarse mutters to the murmuring sycamore, 1 
What shall I deem their converse ? would they hail 

The wild gray light that fronts yon massive cloud, 

Or the half bow, rising like pillar'd fire? 
Or are they fighting faintly for desire 

That with May dawn their leaves may be o'erflowed, 

And dews about their feet may never fail? " 

In the Essay, entitled Theodiccea Novissima, from which 
the following passages are taken to the great injury of 
its general effect, he sets himself to the task of doing his 
utmost to clear up the mystery of the existence of such 
things as sin and suffering in the universe of a being like 
God. He does it fearlessly, but like a child. It is in the 
spirit of his friend's words, — 

" An infant crying in the night, 
An infant crying for the light, 
And with no language but a cry." 

1 This will remind the reader of a fine passage in Edwin the Fair, 
on the specific differences in the sounds made by the ash, the elm, the 
fir, &c, when moved by the wind; and of some lines by Landor on 
flowers speaking to each other; and of something more exquisite than 
either, in Consuelo — the description of the flowers in the old monastic 
garden, at " the sweet hour of prime." 



ARTHUR H. HALLAM. 273 

" Then was I as a child that cries, 

But, crying, knows his father near." 

It is not a mere exercitation of the intellect, it is an 
endeavor to get nearer God — to assert his eternal 
Providence, and vindicate his ways to men. We know 
no performance more wonderful for such a boy. Pascal 
might have written it. As was to be expected, the tre- 
mendous subject remains where he found it — his glowing 
love and genius cast a gleam here and there across its 
gloom ; but it is brief as the lightning in the collied 
night — the jaws of darkness do devour it up — this se- 
cret belongs to God. Across its deep and dazzling dark- 
ness, and from out its abyss of thick cloud, " all dark, 
dark, irrecoverably dark," no steady ray has ever, or will 
ever, come, — over its face its own darkness must brood, 
till He to whom alone the darkness and the light are 
both alike, to whom the night shineth as the day, says, 
" Let there be light ! " There is, we all know, a certain 
awful attraction, a nameless charm for all thoughtful 
spirits, in this mystery, " the greatest in the universe," 
as Mr. Hallam truly says ; and it is well for us at times, 
so that we have pure eyes and a clean heart, to turn 
aside and look into its gloom ; but it is not good to busy 
ourselves in clever speculations about it, or briskly to 
criticize the speculations of others — it is a wise and 
pious saying of Augustin, Venus cogitatur Deus, quam 
dicitur ; et verius est quam cogitatur. 

" I wish to be understood as considering Christianity 
in the present Essay rather in its relation to the intellect, 
as constituting the higher philosophy, than in its far more 
important bearing upon the hearts and destinies of us 
all. I shall propose the question in this form, ' Is there 
ground for believing that the existence of moral evil is 

18 



274 REMAINS OF 

absolutely necessary to the fulfilment of God's essential 
love for Christ ? ' (i. e., of the Father for Christ, or of 
6 7rarr)f) for 6 \oyos). 

" ' Can man by searching find out God ? ' I believe 
not. I believe that the unassisted efforts of man's rea- 
son have not established the existence and attributes of 
Deity on so sure a basis as the Deist imagines. How- 
ever sublime may be the notion of a supreme original 
mind, and however naturally human feelings adhered to 
it, the reasons by which it was justified were not, in my 
opinion, sufficient to clear it from considerable doubt and 
confusion. ... I hesitate not to say that I derive 
from Revelation a conviction of Theism, which without 
that assistance would have been but a dark and ambig- 
uous hope. I see that the Bible Jits into every fold of the 
human heart. I am a man, and I believe it to be God's 
book because it is man's book. It is true that the Bible 
affords me no additional means of demonstrating the 
falsity of Atheism ; if mind had nothing to do with the 
formation of the Universe, doubtless whatever had was 
competent also to make the Bible ; but I have gained this 
advantage, that my feelings and thoughts can no longer 
refuse their assent to what is evidently framed to engage 
that assent ; and what is it to me that I cannot disprove 
the bare logical possibility of my whole nature being 
fallacious ? To seek for a certainty above certainty, an 
evidence beyond necessary belief, is the very lunacy of 
skepticism : we must trust our own faculties, or we can 
put no trust in anything, save that moment we call the 
present, which escapes us while we articulate its name. 
1 am determined therefore to receive the Bible as Divinely 
authorized, and the scheme of human and Divine things 
which it contains, as essentially truer 



ARTHUR H. HALLAM. 275 

" I may further observe, that however much we 
should rejoice to discover that the eternal scheme of 
God — the necessary completion, let us remember, of 
his Almighty Nature — did not require the absolute 
perdition of any spirit called by Him into existence, we 
are certainly not entitled to consider the perpetual mis- 
ery of many individuals as incompatible with sovereign 
love." 

" In the Supreme Nature those two capacities of 
Perfect Love and Perfect Joy are indivisible. Holiness 
and Happiness, says an old divine, are two several no- 
tions of one thing. Equally inseparable are the notions 
of Opposition to Love and Opposition to Bliss. Unless 
therefore the heart of a created being is at one with the 
heart of God, it cannot but be miserable. Moreover, 
there is no possibility of continuing forever partly with 
God and partly against him ; we must either be capable 
by our nature of entire accordance with His will, or we 
must be incapable of anything but misery, further than 
He may for awhile ' not impute our trespasses to us,' 
that is, He may interpose some temporary barrier be- 
tween sin and its attendant pain. For in the Eternal 
Idea of God a created spirit is perhaps not seen, as a 
series of successive states, of which some that are evil 
might be compensated by others that are good, but as one 
indivisible object of these almost infinitely divisible modes, 
and that either in accordance with His own nature, or 
in opposition to it. . . . 

" Before the gospel was preached to man, how could 
a human soul have this love, and this consequent life? 
I see no way ; but now that Christ has excited our love 
for him by showing unutterable love for us ; now that 
we know him as an Elder Brother, a being of like 



276 REMAINS OF 

thoughts, feelings, sensations, sufferings, with ourselves, 
it has become possible to love as God loves, that is, to 
love Christ, and thus to become united in heart to God. 
Besides, Christ is the express image of God's person ; 
in loving him we are sure we are in a state of readiness 
to love the Father, whom we see, he tells us, when we 
see him. Nor is this all ; the tendency of love is to- 
wards a union so intimate as virtually to amount to 
identification ; when then by affection towards . Christ 
we have become blended with his being, the beams of 
eternal love, falling, as ever, on the one beloved object, 
will include us in him, and their returning flashes of 
love out of his personality will carry along with them 
some from our own, since ours has become confused 
with his, and so shall we be one with Christ and through 
Christ with God. Thus then we see the great effect of 
the Incarnation, as far as our nature is concerned, was 
to render human love for the Most High a possible thing. 
The Law had said, ' Thou shalt love the Lord thy God 
with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all 
thy strength ; ' and could men have lived by law, ' which 
is the strength of sin,' verily righteousness and life 
would have been by that law. But it was not possible, 
and all were concluded under sin, that in Christ might 
be the deliverance of all. I believe that Redemption " 
(i. e., what Christ has done and suffered for mankind) 
" is universal, in so far as it left no obstacle between 
man and God, but man's own will : that indeed is in the 
power of God's election, with whom alone rest the abys- 
mal secrets of personality ; but as far as Christ is con- 
cerned, his death was for all, since his intentions and 
affections were equally directed to all, and * none who 
come to him will he in any wise cast out.' 



ARTHUR H. HALLAM. 277 

" I deprecate any hasty rejection of these thoughts as 
novelties. Christianity is indeed, as St. Augustin says, 
1 pulchritudo tarn antiqua ; • but he adds, ' tarn nova,' for 
it is capable of presenting to every mind a new face of 
truth. The great doctrine, which in my judgment these 
observations tend to strengthen and illumine, the doctrine 
of personal love for a personal God, is assuredly no 
novelty, but has in all times been the vital principle of 
the Church. Many are the forms of antichristian heresy, 
which for a season have depressed and obscured that 
principle of life ; but its nature is connective and resur- 
gent ; and neither the Papal Hierarchy with its pomp 
of systematized errors, not the worse apostasy of latitu- 
dinarian Protestantism, have ever so far prevailed, but 
that many from age to age have proclaimed and vindi- 
cated the eternal gospel of love, believing, as I also firmly 
believe, that any opinion which tends to keep out of sight 
the living and loving God, whether it substitute for Him 
an idol, an occult agency, or a formal creed, can be no- 
thing better than a vain and portentous shadow projected 
from the selfish darkness of unregenerate man." 

The following is from the Review of Tennyson's 
Poems ; we do not know that during the lapse of eigh- 
teen years anything better has been said : — 

" Undoubtedly the true poet addresses himself, in all 
his conceptions, to the common nature of us all. Art 
is a lofty tree, and may shoot up far beyond our grasp, 
but its roots are in daily life and experience. Every 
bosom contains the elements of those complex emotions 
which the artist feels, and every head can, to a certain 
extent, go over in itself the process of their combina- 
tion, so as to understand his expressions and sympathize 
with his state. But this requires exertion ; more or less, 



278 REMAINS OF 

indeed, according to the difference of occasion, but al- 
ways some degree of exertion. For since the emotions 
of the poet during composition follow a regular law of 
association, it follows that to accompany their progress up 
to the harmonious prospect of the whole, and to perceive 
the proper dependence of every step on that which pre- 
ceded, it is absolutely necessary to start from the same 
point, i. e., clearly to apprehend that leading sentiment 
of the poet's mind, by their conformity to which the host 
of suggestions are arranged. Now this requisite exertion 
is not willingly made by the large majority of readers. 
It is so easy to judge capriciously, and according to in- 
dolent impulse I " 

" Those different powers of poetic disposition, the en- 
ergies of Sensitive, of Reflective, or Passionate Emo- 
tion, which in former times were intermingled, and 
derived from mutual support an extensive empire over 
the feelings of men, were now restrained within sepa- 
rate spheres of agency. The whole system no longer 
worked harmoniously, and by intrinsic harmony acquired 
external freedom ; but there arose a violent and unu- 
sual action in the several component functions, each for 
itself, all striving to reproduce the regular power which 
the whole had once enjoyed. Hence the melancholy 
which so evidently characterizes the spirit of modern po- 
etry ; hence that return of the mind upon itself, and the 
habit of seeking relief in idiosyncrasies rather than com- 
munity of interest. In the old times the poetic impulse 
went along with the general impulse of the nation. 

" One of the faithful Islam, a poet in the truest and 
highest sense, we are anxious to present to our readers. 
. . . He sees all the forms of Nature with the ' erudi- 
tus oculus,' and his ear has a fairy fineness. There is a 



ARTHUR H. HALLAM. 279 

strange earnestness in his worship of beauty, which throws 
a charm over his impassioned song, more easily felt than 
described, and not to be escaped by those who have once 
felt it. We think that he has more dejiniteness and 
roundness of general conception than the late Mr. Keats, 
and is much more free from blemishes of diction and 
hasty capriccios of fancy. . . . The author imitates 
nobody ; we recognize the spirit of his age, but not the 
individual form of this or that writer. His thoughts 
bear no more resemblance to Byron or Scott, Shelley 
or Coleridge, than to Homer or Calderon, Ferdusi or 
Calidasa. We have remarked five distinctive excel- 
lencies of his own manner. First, his luxuriance of 
imagination, and at the same time his control over it. 
Secondly, his power of embodying himself in ideal cha- 
racters, or rather modes of character, with such extreme 
accuracy of adjustment, that the circumstances of the 
narration seem to have a natural correspondence with 
the predominant feeling, and, as it were, to be evolved 
from it by assimilative force. Thirdly, his vivid, pic- 
turesque delineation of objects, and the peculiar skill 
with which he holds all of them fused, to borrow a 
metaphor from science, in a medium of strong emo- 
tion. Fourthly, the variety of his lyrical measures, and 
exquisite modulation of harmonious words and cadences 
to the swell and fall of the feelings expressed. Fifthly, 
the elevated habits of thought, implied in these composi- 
tions, and imparting a mellow soberness of tone, more 
impressive, to our minds, than if the author had drawn 
up a set of opinions in verse, and sought to instruct 
the understanding, rather than to communicate the love of 
beauty to the heart" 

What follows is justly thought and well said. 



280 REMAINS OF 

" And is it not a noble thing, that the English tongue 
is, as it were, the common focus and point of union to 
which opposite beauties converge ? Is it a trifle that 
we temper energy with softness, strength with flexibility, 
capaciousness of sound with pliancy of idiom? Some, 
I know, insensible to these virtues, and ambitious of I 
know not what unattainable decomposition, prefer to utter 
funeral praises over the grave of departed Anglo-Saxon, 
or, starting with convulsive shudder, are ready to leap 
from surrounding Latinisms into the kindred, sympathetic 
arms of modern German. For myself, I neither share 
their regret, nor their terror. Willing at all times to 
pay filial homage to the shades of Hengist and Horsa, 
and to admit they have laid the base of our compound 
language ; or, if you will, have prepared the soil from 
which the chief nutriment of the goodly tree, our Brit- 
ish oak, must be derived, I am yet proud to confess that 
I look with sentiments more exulting and more rev- 
erential to the bonds by which the law of the universe 
has fastened me to my distant brethren of the same 
Caucasian race ; to the privileges which I, an inhabitant 
of the gloomy North, share in common with climates 
imparadised in perpetual summer, to the universality 
and efficacy resulting from blended intelligence, which, 
while it endears in our eyes the land of our fathers as 
a seat of peculiar blessing, tends to elevate and expand 
our thoughts into communion with humanity at large ; 
and, in the ' sublimer spirit ' of the poet, to make us feel 

" That God is everywhere — the God who framed 
Mankind to be one mighty family, 
Himself our Father, and the world our home." 

What nice shading of thought do his remarks on 
Petrarch discover ! 



ARTHUR H. HALLAM. 281 

" But it is not so much to his direct adoptions that I 
refer, as to the general modulation of thought, that clear 
softness of his images, that energetic self possession of 
his conceptions, and that melodious repose in which are 
held together all the emotions he delineates" 

Every one who knows anything of himself, and of 
his fellow-men, will acknowledge the wisdom of what 
follows. It displays an intimate knowledge both of the 
constitution and history of man, and there is much in 
it suited to our present need : — 

" / do not hesitate to express my conviction, that the 
spirit of the critical philosophy, as seen by its fruits in 
all the ramifications of art, literature, and morality, is 
as much more dangerous than the spirit of mechanical 
philosophy, as it is fairer in appearance, and more capa- 
ble of alliance with our natural feelings of enthusiasm 
and delight. Its dangerous tendency is this, that it per- 
verts those very minds, whose office it was to resist the 
perverse impulses of society, and to proclaim truth under 
the dominion of falsehood. However precipitate may 
be at any time the current of public opinion, bearing 
along the mass of men to the grosser agitations of life, 
and to such schemes of belief as make these the promi- 
nent object, there will always be in reserve a force of 
antagonist opinion, strengthened by opposition, and at- 
testing the sanctity of those higher principles, which are 
despised or forgotten by the majority. These men are 
secured by natural temperament and peculiar circum- 
stances from participating in the common delusion ; but 
if some other and deeper fallacy be invented ; if some 
more subtle beast of the field should speak to them in 
wicked flattery ; if a digest of intellectual aphorisms can 
be substituted in their minds for a code of living truths, 



282 REMAINS OF 

and the lovely semblances of beauty, truth, affection, can 
be made first to obscure the presence, and then to con- 
ceal the loss, of that religious humility, without which, 
as their central life, all these are but dreadful shadows ; 
if so fatal a stratagem can be successfully practised, I 
see not what hope remains for a people against whom 
the gates of hell have so prevailed." 

" But the number of pure artists is small : few souls 
are so finely tempered as to preserve the delicacy of 
meditative feeling, untainted by the allurements of acci- 
dental suggestion. The voice of the critical conscience 

Co 

is still and small, like that of the moral : it cannot en- 
tirely be stifled where it has been heard, but it may be 
disobeyed. Temptations are never wanting : some im- 
mediate and temporary effect can be produced at less 
expense of inward exertion than the high and more 
ideal effect which art demands : it is much easier to 
pander to the ordinary and often recurring wish for ex- 
citement, than to promote the rare and difficult intuition 
of beauty. To raise the many to his own real point of 
view, the artist must employ his energies, and create en- 
ergy in others : to descend to their position is less noble, 
but practicable with ease. If I may be allowed the met- 
aphor, one partakes of the nature of redemptive power ; 
the other of that self-abased and degenerate will, which 
' flung from his splendors ' the fairest star in heaven." 

" Revelation is a voluntary approximation of the In- 
finite Being to the ways and thoughts of finite humanity. 
But until this step has been taken by Almighty Grace, 
how should man have a warrant for loving with all his 
heart and mind and strength ? . . . Without the gos- 
pel, nature exhibits a want of harmony between our in- 
trinsic constitution, and the system in which it is placed. 



ARTHUR H. HALLAM. 283 

But Christianity has made up the difference. It is pos- 
sible and natural to love the Father, who has made us 
his children by the spirit of adoption : it is possible and 
natural to love the Elder Brother, who was, in all things, 
like as we are, except sin, and can succor those in temp- 
tation, having been himself tempted. Thus the Christian 
faith is the necessary complement of a sound ethical 
system" 

There is something to us very striking in the words 
" Revelation is a voluntary approximation of the Infinite 
Being." This states the case with an accuracy and a 
distinctness not at all common among either the oppo- 
nents or the apologists of revealed religion in the ordi- 
nary sense of the expression. In one sense God is for- 
ever revealing himself. His heavens are forever telling 
his glory, and the firmament showing his handiwork ; 
day unto day is uttering speech, and night unto night 
is showing knowledge concerning him. But in the word 
of the truth of the gospel, God draws near to his crea- 
tures ; he bows his heavens, and comes down : 

" That glorious form, that light unsufferable, 
And that far-beaming blaze of majesty," 

he lays aside. The Word dwelt with men. " Come 
then, let us reason together ; " — " Waiting to be gra- 
cious ; " — " Behold, I stand at the door, and knock ; if 
any man open to me, I will come in to him, and sup 
with him, and he with me," It is the father seeing his 
son while yet a great way off, and having compassion, 
and running to him and falling on his neck and kissing 
him ; for k ' it was meet for us to rejoice, for this my son 
was dead and is alive again, he was lost and is found." 
Let no man confound the voice of God in his Works 
with the voice of God in his Word ; they are utterances 



284 REMAINS OF 

of the same infinite heart and will ; they are in absolute 
harmony ; together they make up " that undisturbed song 
of pure concent ; " one " perfect diapason ; " but they are 
distinct ; they are meant to be so. A poor traveller, 
" weary and waysore," is stumbling in unknown places 
through the darkness of a night of fear, with no light 
near him, the everlasting stars twinkling far off in their 
depths, and yet unrisen sun, or the waning moon, sending 
up their pale beams into the upper heavens, but all this 
is distant, and bewildering for his feet, doubtless better 
much than outer darkness, beautiful and full of God, if 
he could have the heart to look up, and the eyes to make 
use of its vague light; but he is miserable, and afraid, 
his next step is what he is thinking of; a lamp secured 
against all winds of doctrine is put into his hands, it may, 
in some respects, widen the circle of darkness, but it will 
cheer his feet, it will tell them what to do next. What 
a silly fool he would be to throw away that lantern, or 
draw down the shutters, and make it dark to him, while 
it sits " i' the centre and enjoys bright day," and all upon 
the philosophical ground that its light was of the same 
kind as the stars', and that it was beneath the dignity of 
human nature to do anything but struggle on and be lost 
in the attempt to get through the wilderness and the night 
by the guidance of those " natural " lights, which, though 
they are from heaven, have so often led the wanderer 
astray. The dignity of human nature indeed ! Let him 
keep his lantern till the glad sun is up, with healing un- 
der his wings. Let him take good heed to the " sure " 
Xoyov while in this av^rjpdo to7t(d — this dark, damp, un- 
wholesome place, " till the day dawn and <£ooo-(£opos — the 
day-star — arise." Nature and the Bible, the Works and 
the Word of God, are two distinct things. In the mind 



ARTHUR H. HALLAM. 285 

of their Supreme Author they dwell in perfect peace, in 
that unspeakable unity which is of his essence ; and to us 
his children, every day their harmony, their mutual rela- 
tions, are discovering themselves ; but let us beware of 
saying all nature is a revelation as the Bible is, and all 
the Bible is natural as nature is : there is a perilous jug- 
gle here. 

The following passage develops Arthur Hallam's views 
on religious feeling; this was the master-idea of his mind, 
and it would not be easy to overrate its importance. 
" My son, give me thine heart ; " — " Thou shalt love the 
Lord thy God ; " — " The fool hath said in his heart, 
There is no God." He expresses the same general idea 
in these words, remarkable in themselves, still more so 
as being the thought of one so young. " The work of 
intellect is posterior to the work of feeling. The latter 
lies at the foundation of the man ; it is his proper self — 
the peculiar thing that characterizes him as an individual. 
No two men are alike in feeling ; but conceptions of the 
understanding, when distinct, are precisely similar in 
all — the ascertained relations of truths are the common 
property of the race." 

Tennyson, we have no doubt, had this thought of his 
friend in his mind, in the following lines ; it is an answer 
to the question, Can man by searching find out God ? — 

" I found Him not in world or sun, 
Or eagle's wing, or insect's eye; 
Nor thro' the questions men may try, 
The petty cobwebs we have spun : 

" If e'er when faith had fallen asleep, 
I heard a voice ' believe no more,' 
And heard an ever-breaking shore 
That tumbled in the godless deep ; 



286 REMAINS OF 

"A warmth within the breast would melt 
The freezing reason's colder part, 
And like a man in wrath, the heart 
Stood up and answered 1 l I have felt. 1 

" No, like a child in doubt and fear: 

But that blind clamor made me wise; 
Then was I as a child that cries, 
But, crying, knows his father near; 

"And what I seem beheld again 

What is, and no man understands : 
And out of darkness came the hands 
That reach thro' nature, moulding men." 

This is a subject of the deepest personal as well as 
speculative interest. In the works of Augustin, of Bax- 
ter, Howe, and Jonathan Edwards, and of Alexander 
Knox, our readers will find how large a place the re- 
ligious affections held, in their view of Divine truth as 
well as of human duty. The last-mentioned writer ex- 
presses himself thus : — " Our sentimental faculties are 
far stronger than our cogitative ; and the best impres- 
sions on the latter will be but the moonshine of the 
mind, if they are alone. Feeling will be best excited 
by sympathy ; rather, it cannot be excited in any other 
way. Heart must act upon heart — the idea of a living 
person being essential to all intercourse of heart. You 
cannot by any possibility cordialize with a mere ens ra~ 
tionis. ' The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among 
us,' otherwise we could not ' have beheld his glory/ much 
less ' received of his fulness.' " * 

Our young author thus goes on : — 

" This opens upon us an ampler view in which the 
subject deserves to be considered, and a relation still 

1 Remains, vol. iii. p. 105. 



ARTHUR H. HALLAM. 287 

more direct and close between the Christian religion 
and the passion of love. What is the distinguishing 
character of Hebrew literature, which separates it by 
so broad a line of demarcation from that of every an- 
cient people ? Undoubtedly the sentiment of erotic devo- 
tion which pervades it. Their poets never represent the 
Deity as an impassive principle, a mere organizing intel- 
lect, removed at infinite distance from human hopes and 
fears. He is for them a being of like passions with 
themselves, 1 requiring heart for heart, and capable of 
inspiring affection because capable of feeling and re- 
turning it. Awful indeed are the thunders of his utter- 
ance and the clouds that surround his dwelling-place ; 
very terrible is the vengeance he executes on the na- 
tions that forget him : but to his chosen people, and 
especially to the men ' after his own heart,' whom he 
anoints from the midst of them, his ' still, small voice ' 
speaks in sympathy and loving-kindness. Every He- 
brew, while his breast glowed with patriotic enthusiasm 
at those promises, which he shared as one of the favored 
race, had a yet deeper source of emotion, from which 
gushed perpetually the aspirations of prayer and thanks- 
giving. He might consider himself alone in the presence 
of his God ; the single being to whom a great revelation 



1 "An unfortunate reference (Acts xiv. 15), for the apostle's decla- 
ration is, that he and his brethren were of 'like passions ■ (James v. 
IT); — liable to the same imperfections and mutations of thought and 
feeling as other men, and as the Lystrans supposed their gods to be; 
while the God proclaimed by him to them is not so. And that God is 
the God of the Jews as well as of the Christians ; for there is but one 
God. Hallam's thought is an important and just one, but not devel- 
oped with his usual nice accuracy." 

For this note, as for much else, I am indebted to my father, whose 
powers of compressed thought I wish I had inherited. 



288 REMAINS OF 

had been made, and over whose head an i exceeding 
weight of glory ' was suspended. For him the rocks 
of Horeb had trembled, and the waters of the Red Sea 
were parted in their course. The word given on Sinai 
with such solemn pomp of ministration was given to his 
own individual soul, and brought him into immediate 
communion with his Creator. That awful Being could 
never be put away from him. He was about his path, 
and about his bed, and knew all his thoughts long before. 
Yet this tremendous, enclosing presence was a presence of 
love. It was a manifold, everlasting manifestation of one 
deep feeling — a desire for human affection} Such a be- 
lief, while it enlisted even pride and self-interest on the 
side of piety, had a direct tendency to excite the best 
passions of our nature. Love is not long asked in vain 
from generous dispositions. A Being, never absent, but 
standing beside the life of each man with ever watchful 
tenderness, and recognized, though invisible, in every 
blessing that befell them from youth to age, became 
naturally the object of their warmest affections. Their 
belief in him could not exist without producing, as a 
necessary effect, that profound impression of passionate 
individual attachment which in the Hebrew authors al- 
ways mingles with and vivifies their faith in the Invisi- 
ble. All the books of the Old Testament are breathed 
upon by this breath of life. Especially is it to be found 
in that beautiful collection, entitled the Psalms of David, 
which remains, after some thousand years, perhaps the 
most perfect form in which the religious sentiment of 
man has been embodied. 

1 Abraham "was called the friend of God;" "with him (Moses) 
will I (Jehovah) speak mouth to mouth, even apparently," — "as a 
man to his friend; " David was " a man after mine own heart." 



ARTHUR H. HALLAM. 289 

" But what is true of Judaism is yet more true of 
Christianity: 'matre pulchrd jilia pulchrior? In addi- 
tion to all the characters of Hebrew Monotheism, there 
exists in the doctrine of the Gross a peculiar and in- 
exhaustible treasure for the affectionate feelings. The 
idea of the ®eav6p<D7ros, the God whose goings forth have 
been from everlasting, yet visible to men for their re- 
demption as an earthly, temporal creature, living, acting, 
and suffering among themselves, then (which is yet more 
important) transferring to the unseen place of his spirit- 
ual agency the same humanity he wore on earth, so that 
the lapse of generations can in no way affect the concep- 
tion of his identity ; this is the most powerful thought 
that ever addressed itself to a human imagination. It is 
the wov otw, which alone was wanted to move the world. 
Here was solved at once the great problem which so long 
had distressed the teachers of mankind, how to make vir- 
tue the object of passion, and to secure at once the warm- 
est enthusiasm in the heart with the clearest perception 
of right and wrong in the understanding. The character 
of the blessed Founder of our faith became an abstract of 
morality to determine the judgment, while at the same 
time it remained personal, and liable to love. The written 
word and established church prevented a degeneration 
into ungoverned mysticism, but the predominant principle 
of vital religion always remained that of self-sacrifice to 
the Saviour. Not only the higher divisions of moral 
duties, but the simple, primary impulses of benevolence, 
were subordinated to this new absorbing passion. The 
world was loved ' in Christ alone.' The brethren were 
members of his mystical body. All the other bonds that 
had fastened down the spirit of the universe to our nar- 
row round of earth were as nothing in comparison to this 
19 



290 REMAINS OF 

golden chain of suffering and self-sacrifice, which at once 
riveted the heart of man to one who, like himself, was 
acquainted with grief. Pain is the deepest thing we have 
in our nature, and union through pain has always seemed 
more real and more holy than any other." 1 

There is a sad pleasure, — non ingrata amaritudo, and 
a sort of meditative tenderness, in contemplating the little 
life of this " dear youth," and in letting the mind rest 
upon these his earnest thoughts ; to watch his keen and 
fearless, but child-like spirit, moving itself aright — going 
straight onward " along the lines of limitless desires " — 
throwing himself into the very deepest of the ways of 
God, and striking out as a strong swimmer striketh out 
his hands to swim ; to see him " mewing his mighty 
youth, and kindling his undazzled eye at the fountain 
itself of heavenly radiance : " 

" Light intellectual, and full of love, 
Love of true beauty, therefore full of joy, 
Joy, every other sweetness far above." 

It is good for every one to look upon such a sight, and as 

1 This is the passage referred to in Henry Taylor's delightful Notes 
from Life (" Essay on Wisdom ") : — 

" Fear, indeed, is the mother of foresight : spiritual fear, of a fore- 
sight that reaches beyond the grave ; temporal fear, of a foresight that 
falls short; but without fear there is neither the one foresight nor the 
other ; and as pain has been truly said to be ' the deepest thing in our 
nature,' so is it fear that will bring the depths of our nature within our 
knowledge. A great capacity of suffering belongs to genius; and it 
has been observed that an alternation of joyfulness and dejection is 
quite as characteristic of the man of genius as intensity in either kind." 
In his Notes from Books, p. 216, he recurs to it : — " ' Pain,' says a 
writer whose early death will not prevent his being long remembered, 
4 pain is the deepest thing that we have in our nature, and union 
through pain has always seemed more real and more holy than any 
other.' " 



ARTHUR H. HALLAM. 291 

we look, to love. We should all be the better for it ; and 
should desire to be thankful for, and to use aright a gift 
so good and perfect, coming down as it does from above, 
from the Father of lights, in whom alone there is no 
variableness, neither shadow of turning. 

Thus it is, that to each one of us the death of Arthur 
Hallam — his thoughts and affections — his views of God, 
of our relations to Him, of duty, of the meaning and 
worth of this world, and the next, — where he now is, 
have an individual significance. He is bound up in our 
bundle of life ; we must be the better or the worse of 
having known what manner of man he was ; and in a 
sense less peculiar, but not less true, each of us may say, 

" The tender grace of a day that is dead 



Will never come back to me.' 



" for the touch of a vanished hand, 



And the sound of a voice that is still! " 

81 God gives us love ! Something to love 
He lends us; but when love is grown 
To ripeness, that on which it throve 
Falls off, and love is left alone : 

" This is the curse of time. Alas ! 
In grief we are not all unlearned ; 
Once, through our own doors Death did pass : 
One went, who never hath returned. 

" This star 
Rose with us, through a little arc 
Of heaven, nor having wandered far, 
Shot on the sudden into dark. 

" Sleep sweetly, tender heart, in peace ; 
Sleep, holy spirit, blessed soul, 
While the stars burn, the moons increase, 
And the great ages onward roll. 



292 REMAINS OF 

" Sleep till the end, true soul and sweet, 
Nothing comes to thee new or strange, 
Sleep, full of rest from head to feet ; 
Lie still, dry dust, secure of change." 

Vattene in pace, alma beata e bella. — Go in peace, 
soul beautiful and blessed. 

" O man greatly beloved, go thou thy way till the end, 
for thou shalt rest, and stand in thy lot at the end of the 
days." — Daniel. 



" Lord, I have viewed this world over, in which thou 
hast set me ; I have tried how this and that thing will fit 
my spirit, and the design of my creation, and can find 
nothing on which to rest, for nothing here doth itself rest, 
but such things as please me for a while, in some degree, 
vanish and flee as shadows from before me. Lo ! I come 
to Thee — the Eternal Being — the Spring of Life — 
the Centre of rest — the Stay of the Creation — the 
Fulness of all things. I join myself to Thee ; with Thee 
I will lead my life, and spend my days, with whom I 
aim to dwell forever, expecting, when my little time is 
over, to be taken up ere long into thy eternity ." — John 
Howe, The Vanity of Man as Mortal 

Necesse est tanquam immaturam mortem ejus defleam : 
si tamen fas est aut flere, aut omnino mortem vocare, qua 
tanti juvenis mortalitas magis jinita quam vita est Vivit 
enim, vivetque semper, atque etiam latius in memoria 
hominum et sermone versabitur, postquam ab oculis re- 
cessit. 

The above notice was published in 1851. On sending 
to Mr. Hallam a copy of the Review in which it ap- 



ARTHUR H. HALLAM. 293 

peared, I expressed my hope that he would not be dis- 
pleased by what I had done. I received the following 
kind and beautiful reply : — 

" Wilton Crescent, Feb. 1, 1851. 

"Dear Sir, — It would be ungrateful in me to feel any displeasure 
at so glowing an eulogy on my dear eldest son Arthur, though after 
such a length of time, so unusual, as you have written in the North 
British Review. I thank you, on the contrary, for the strong language 
of admiration you have employed, though it may expose me to appli- 
cations for copies of the Remains, which I have it not in my power to 
comply with. I was very desirous to have lent you a copy, at your 
request, but you have succeeded elsewhere. 

" You are probably aware that I was prevented from doing this by 
a great calamity, very similar in its circumstances to that I had to de- 
plore in 1833 — the loss of another son, equal in virtues, hardly inferior 
in abilities, to him whom you have commemorated. This has been an 
unspeakable affliction to me, and at my advanced age, seventy-three 
years, I can have no resource but the hope, in God's mercy, of a 
reunion with them both. The resemblance in their characters was 
striking, and I had often reflected how wonderfully my first loss had 
been repaired by the substitution, as it might be called, of one so 
closely representing his brother. I send you a brief Memoir, drawn 
up by two friends, with very little alteration of my own. — I am, Dear 
Sir, faithfully yours, Henry Hallam. 

" Dr. Brown, 
" Edinburgh." 



The following extracts, from the Memoir of Henry 
Fitzmaurice Hallam mentioned above, which has been 
appended to a reprint of his brother's Remains (for pri- 
vate circulation), form a fitting close to this memorial of 
these two brothers, who were "lovely and pleasant in 
their lives," and are now by their deaths not divided : — 

" But few months have elapsed since the pages of In 
Memoriam recalled to the minds of many, and impressed 
on the hearts of all who perused them, the melancholy 



294 REMAINS OF 

circumstances attending the sudden and early death of 
Arthur Henry Hallam, the eldest son of Henry Hallam, 
Esq. Not many weeks ago the public journals contained 
a short paragraph announcing the decease, under circum- 
stances equally distressing, and in some points remarkably 
similar, of Henry Fitzmaurice, Mr. Hallam's younger 
and only remaining son. No one of the very many who 
appreciate the sterling value of Mr. Hallam's literary 
labors, and who feel a consequent interest in the charac- 
ter of those who would have sustained the eminence of 
an honorable name ; no one who was affected by the 
striking and tragic fatality of two such successive be- 
reavements, will deem an apology needed for this short 
and imperfect Memoir. 

a Henry Fitzmaurice Hallam, the younger son of 
Henry Hallam, Esq., was born on the 31st of August 
1824 ; he took his second name from his godfather, the 
Marquis of Lansdowne. ... A habit of reserve, which 
characterized him at all periods of life, but which was 
compensated in the eyes of even his first companions by 
a singular sweetness of temper, was produced and fos- 
tered by the serious thoughtfulness ensuing upon early 
familiarity with domestic sorrow. 

" ' He was gentle/ writes one of his earliest and 
closest school-friends, ' retiring, thoughtful to pensive- 
ness, affectionate, without envy or jealousy, almost with- 
out emulation, impressible, but not wanting in moral 
firmness. No one was ever more formed for friendship. 
In all his words and acts he was simple, straightforward, 
true. He was very religious. Religion had a real effect 
upon his character, and made him tranquil about great 
things, though he was so nervous about little things/ 

" He was called to the bar in Trinity Term, 1850, and 



ARTHUR H. HALL AM. 295 

became a member of the Midland Circuit in the summer. 
Immediately afterwards he joined his family in a tour on 
the Continent. They had spent the early part of the 
autumn at Rome, and were returning northwards, when 
he was attacked by a sudden and severe illness, affecting 
the vital powers, and accompanied by enfeebled circula- 
tion and general prostration of strength. He was able, 
with difficulty, to reach Siena, where he sank rapidly 
through exhaustion, and expired on Friday, October 25. 
It is to be hoped that he did not experience any great or 
active suffering. He was conscious nearly to the last, 
and met his early death (of which his presentiments, for 
several years., had been frequent and very singular) with 
calmness and fortitude. There is reason to apprehend, 
from medical examination, that his life would not have 
been of very long duration, even had this unhappy illness 
not occurred. But for some years past his health had 
been apparently much improved ; and, secured as it 
seemed to be by his unintermitted temperance, and by a 
carefulness in regimen which his early feebleness of con- 
stitution had rendered habitual, those to whom he was 
nearest and dearest had, in great measure, ceased to 
regard him with anxiety. His remains were brought to 
England, and he was interred, on December 23d, in 
Clevedon Church, Somersetshire, by the side of his 
brother, his sister, and his mother. 

" For continuous and sustained thought he had an 
extraordinary capacity, the bias of his mind being de- 
cidedly towards analytical processes ; a characteristic 
which w T as illustrated at Cambridge by his uniform par- 
tiality for analysis, and comparative distaste for the 
geometrical method, in his mathematical studies. His 
early proneness to dwell upon the more recondite depart- 



296 REMAINS OF ARTHUR H. HALLAM. 

ments of each science and branch of inquiry has been 
alluded to above. It is not to be inferred that, as a con- 
sequence of this tendency, he blinded himself, at any 
period of his life, to the necessity and the duty of practi- 
cal exertion. He was always eager to act as well as 
speculate ; and, in this respect, his character preserved 
an unbroken consistency and harmony from the epoch 
when, on commencing his residence at Cambridge, he 
voluntarily became a teacher in a parish Sunday-school, 
for the sake of applying his theories of religious educa- 
tion, to the time when, on the point of setting forth on his 
last fatal journey, he framed a plan of obtaining access, in 
the ensuing winter, to a large commercial establishment, 
in the view of familiarizing himself with the actual course 
and minute detail of mercantile transactions. 

" Insensibly and unconsciously he had made himself a 
large number of friends in the last few years of his life : 
the painful impression created by his death in the circle 
in which he habitually moved, and even beyond it, was 
exceedingly remarkable, both for its depth and extent. 
For those united with him in a companionship more than 
ordinarily close, his friendship had taken such a charac- 
ter as to have almost become a necessity of existence. 
But it was upon his family that he lavished all the wealth 
of his disposition — affection without stint, gentleness 
never once at fault, considerateness reaching to self- 
sacrifice : — 

" Di clo si biasmi il debolo intelletto 
E' l'parlar nostro, die non ha valore 
Di ritrar tutto cio che dice amore. 

H. S. M. 
F. L." 



EDUCATION THROUGH THE SENSES. 




EDUCATION THROUGH THE SENSES. 

Uptorov xoprGV, etra (TT&xyv, ctra 7rXi]prj crirov kv t<3 cttol^vL 




NE of the chief sins of our time is hurry : 
it is helter-skelter, and devil take the hind- 
most. Off we go all too swift at starting, 
and we neither run so fast nor so far as we 
would have done, had we taken it cannily at first. 
This is true of a boy as well as of a blood colt. Not 
only are boys and colts made to do the work and the 
running of full-grown men and horses, but they are 
hurried out of themselves and their now, and pushed 
into the middle of next week where nobody is wanting 
them, and beyond which they frequently never get. 

The main duty of those who care for the young is to 
secure their wholesome, their entire growth, for health 
is just the development of the whole nature in its due 
sequences and proportions : first the blade — then the 
ear — then, and not till then, the full corn in the ear ; 
and thus, as Dr. Temple wisely says, " not to forget 
wisdom in teaching knowledge." If the blade be forced, 
and usurp the capital it inherits ; if it be robbed by you 
its guardian of its birthright, or squandered like a spend- 
thrift, then there is not any ear, much less any corn ; if 
the blade be blasted or dwarfed in our haste and greed 
for the full shock and its price, we spoil all three. It is 
not easy to keep this always before one's mind, that the 



300 EDUCATION THROUGH THE SENSES. 

young " idea " is in a young body, and that healthy 
growth and harmless passing of the time are more to 
be cared for than what is vainly called accomplishment. 
We are preparing him to run his race, and accomplish that 
which is one of his chief ends ; but we are too apt to 
start him off at his full speed, and he either bolts or 
breaks down — the worst thing for him generally being 
to win. In this way a child or boy should be regarded 
much more as a mean than as an end, and his cultivation 
should have reference to this ; his mind, as old Montaigne 
said, should be forged, as well as — indeed, I would say, 
rather than — furnished, fed rather than filled, — two not 
always coincident conditions. Now exercise — the joy 
of interest, of origination, of activity, of excitement — 
the play of the faculties, — this is the true life of a boy, 
not the accumulation of mere words. Words — the coin 
of thought — unless as the means of buying something 
else, are just as useless as other coin when it is hoarded ; 
and it is as silly, and in the true sense as much the part 
and lot of a miser, to amass words for their own sakes, 
as to keep all your guineas in a stocking and never 
spend them, but be satisfied with every now and then 
looking greedily at them and making them chink. There- 
fore it is that I dislike — as indeed who doesn't ? — the 
cramming system. The great thing with knowledge and 
the young is to secure that it shall be their own — that 
it be not merely external to their inner and real self, 
but shall go in succum et sanguinem ; and therefore it is, 
that the self-teaching that a baby and a child give them- 
selves remains with them forever — it is of their essence, 
whereas what is given them ah extra, especially if it be 
received mechanically, without relish, and without any 
energizing of the entire nature, remains pitifully useless 



EDUCATION THROUGH THE SENSES. 301 

and wersh. Try, therefore, always to get the resident 
teacher inside the skin, and who is forever giving his 
lessons, to help you and be on your side. 

Now in children, as we all know, he works chiefly 
through the senses. The quantity of accurate observa- 
tion — of induction, and of deduction too (both of a 
much better quality than most of Mr. Buckle's) ; of 
reasoning from the known to the unknown ; of inferring ; 
the nicety of appreciation of the like and the unlike, the 
common and the rare, the odd and the even ; the skill of 
the rough and the smooth — of form, of appearance, of 
texture, of weight, of all the minute and deep philoso- 
phies of the touch and of the other senses, — the amount 
of this sort of objective knowledge which every child of 
eight years has acquired — especially if he can play in 
the lap of nature and out of doors — and acquired for 
life, is, if we could only think of it, marvellous beyond 
any of our mightiest marches of intellect. Now, could 
we only get the knowledge of the school to go as sweetly 
and deeply and clearly into the vitals of the mind as this 
self-teaching has done, and this is the paradisiac way of 
it, we should make the young mind grow as well as 
learn, and be in understanding a man as well as in sim- 
plicity a child ; we should get rid of much of that dreary, 
sheer endurance of their school-hours — that stolid lend- 
ing of ears that do not hear — that objectless looking 
without ever once seeing, and straining their minds with- 
out an aim ; alternating, it may be, with some feats of 
dexterity and effort, like a man trying to lift himself in 
his own arms, or take his head in his teeth, exploits as 
dangerous, as ungraceful, and as useless, except to glo- 
rify the showman and bring wages in, as the feats of an 
acrobat. 



302 EDUCATION THROUGH THE SENSES. 

But you will ask, how is all this to be avoided if 
everybody must know how far the sun is from Georgium 
Sidus, and how much of phosphorus is in our bones, and 
of ptyalin and flint in human spittle — besides some 
10,000 times 10,000 other things which we must be told 
and try to remember, and which we cannot prove not to 
be true, but which I decline to say we know. 

But is it necessary that everybody should know every- 
thing ? Is it not much more to the purpose for every 
man, when his turn comes, to be able to do something ; 
and I say, that other things being equal, a boy who goes 
bird-nesting, and makes a collection of eggs, and knows 
all their colors and spots, going through the excitements 
and glories of getting them, and observing everything 
with a keenness, an intensity, an exactness, and a per- 
manency, which only youth and a quick pulse, and fresh 
blood and spirits combined, can achieve, — a boy who 
teaches himself natural history in this way, is not only 
a healthier and happier boy, but is abler in mind and 
body for entering upon the great game of life, than the 
pale, nervous, bright-eyed, feverish, " interesting " boy, 
with a big head and a small bottom and thin legs, who 
is the " captain," the miracle of the school ; dux for his 
brief year or two of glory, and, if he live, booby for life. 
I am, of course, not going in for a complete curriculum 
of general ignorance ; but I am for calling the attention 
of teachers to drawing out the minds, the energies, the 
hearts of their pupils through their senses, as w r ell as 
pouring in through these same apertures the general 
knowledge of mankind, the capital of the race, into this 
one small being, who it is to be hoped will contrive 
to forget much of the mere words he has unhappily 
learned. 



EDUCATION THROUGH THE SENSES. 303 

For we may say of our time in all seriousness, what 
Sydney Smith said in the fulness of his wisdom and his 
fun, of the pantologic master of Trinity — Science is our 
forte ; omniscience is our foible. There is the seed of 
a whole treatise, a whole organon in this joke ; think 
over it, and let it simmer in your mind, and you will feel 
its significance and its power. Now, what is science so 
called to every 999 men in 1000, but something that the 
one man tells them he has been told by some one else — 
who may be one among say 50,000 — is true, but of the 
truth of which these 999 men (and probably even the 
teaching thousandth man) can have no direct test, and, 
accordingly, for the truth or falsehood of which they, by 
a law of their nature, which rejects what has no savor 
and is superfluous, don't care one fig. How much better, 
how much dearer, and more precious in a double sense, 
because it has been bought by themselves, — how much 
nobler is the knowledge which our little friend, young 
Edward Forbes, " that marvellous boy," for instance — - 
and what an instance ! — is picking up, as he looks into 
everything he sees, and takes photographs upon his 
retina — the camera lucida of his mind — which never 
fade, of every midge that washes its face as a cat does, 
and preens its wings, every lady -bird that alights on his 
knee, and folds and unfolds her gauzy pinions under 
their spotted and glorious lids. How more real is not 
only this knowledge, but this little knowledger in his 
entire nature, than the poor being who can maunder 
amazingly the entire circle of human science at second, 
or it may be, twentieth hand ! 

There are some admirable, though cursory remarks on 
" Ornithology as a Branch of Liberal Education," by the 
late Dr. Adams of Banchory, the great Greek scholar, 



304 EDUCATION THROUGH THE SENSES. 

in a pamphlet bearing this title, which he read as a paper 
before the last meeting of the British Association in 
Aberdeen. It is not only interesting as a piece of nat- 
ural history, and a touching cooperation of father and 
son in the same field — the one on the banks of his own 
beautiful Dee and among the wilds of the Grampians, 
the other among the Himalayas and the forests of Cash- 
mere ; the son having been enabled, by the knowledge 
of his native birds got under his father's eye, when 
placed in an unknown country to recognize his old feath- 
ered friends, and to make new ones and tell their story ; 
it is also valuable as coming from a man of enormous 
scholarship and knowledge — the most learned physician 
of his time — who knew Aristotle and Plato, and all 
those old fellows, as we know Maunder or Lardner — 
a hard-working country surgeon, who was ready to run 
at any one's call — but who did not despise the modern 
enlightenments of his profession, because they were not 
in Paulus Agineta ; though, at the same time, he did 
not despise the admirable and industrious Paul because 
he was not up to the last doctrine of the nucleated cell, 
or did not read his Hippocrates by the blaze of Paraffine ; 
a man greedy of all knowledge, and welcoming it from 
all comers, but who, at the end of a long life of toil and 
thought, gave it as his conviction that one of the best 
helps to true education, one of the best counteractives to 
the necessary mischiefs of mere scientific teaching and 
information, was to be found in getting the young to 
teach themselves some one of the natural sciences, and 
singling out ornithology as one of the readiest and most 
delightful for such a life as his. 

I end these intentionally irregular remarks by a story. 
Some years ago I was in one of the wildest recesses of 



EDUCATION THROUGH THE SEXSES. 305 

the Perthshire Highlands. It was in autumn, and the 
little school supported mainly by the Chief, who dwelt 
all the year round in the midst of his own people, was 
to be examined by the minister, whose native tongue, 
like that of his flock, was Gaelic, and who was as awk- 
ward and ineffectual, and sometimes as unconsciously 
indecorous, in his English, as a Cockney is in his kilt. 
It was a great occasion : the keen-eyed, firm -limbed, 
brown-cheeked little fellows were all in a buzz of excite- 
ment as we came in, and before the examination began 
every eye was looking at us strangers as a dog looks at 
his game, or when seeking it ; they knew everything we 
had on, everything that could be known through their 
senses. I never felt myself so studied and scrutinized 
before. If any one could have examined them upon 
what they thus mastered, Sir Charles Trevelyan and 
John Mill would have come away astonished, and, I 
trust, humble. Well then, the work of the day began ; 
the mill was set a-going, and what a change ! In an 
instant their eyes were like the windows of a house with 
the blinds down ; no one was looking out ; everything 
blank ; their very features changed — their jaws fell, 
their cheeks flattened, they drooped and looked ill at 
ease — stupid, drowsy, sulky — and getting them to 
speak, or think, or in any way to energize, was like 
trying to get any one to come to the window at three 
of a summer morning, when, if they do come, they 
are half awake, rubbing their eyes and growling. So 
with my little Celts. They were like an idle and half 
asleep collie by the fireside, as contrasted with the collie 
on the hill and in the joy of work ; the form of dog and 
boy are there — he, the self of each, was elsewhere (for 
I differ from Professor Ferrier in thinking that the dog 
20 



306 EDUCATION THROUGH THE SENSES. 

has the reflex ego, and is a very knowing being.) I 
noticed that anything they really knew roused them 
somewhat ; what they had merely to transmit or pass 
along, as if they were a tube through which the master 
blew the pea of knowledge into our faces, was performed 
as stolidly as if they were nothing but a tube. 

At last the teacher asked where Sheffield was, and was 
answered ; it was then pointed to by the dux, as a dot on 
a skeleton map. And now came a flourish. " What is 
Sheffield famous for ? " Blank stupor, hopeless vacuity, 
till he came to a sort of sprouting Dougal Cratur — al- 
most as wee, and as glegg, and as tousy about the head, 
as my own Kin tail terrier, whom I saw at that moment 
through the open door careering after a hopeless rabbit, 
with much benefit to his muscles and his wind — who 
was trembling with keenness. He shouted out some- 
thing which was liker " cutlery " than anything else, and 
was received as such amid our rapturous applause. I 
then ventured to ask the master to ask small and red 
Dougal what cutlery was ; but from the sudden erubes- 
cence of his pallid, ill-fed cheek, and the alarming bright- 
ness of his eyes, I twigged at once that he didn't himself 
know what it meant. So I put the question myself, and 
was not surprised to find that not one of them, from 
Dougal up to a young strapping shepherd of eighteen, 
knew what it was. 

I told them that Sheffield was famous for making 
knives, and scissors, and razors, and that cutlery meant 
the manufacture of anything that cuts. Presto ! and the 
blinds were all up, and eagerness, and nous, and brains 
at the window. I happened to have a Wharncliffe, with 
" Rodgers and Sons, Sheffield," on the blade. I sent it 
round, and finally presented it to the enraptured Dougal. 



EDUCATION THROUGH THE SENSES. 307 

Would not each one of those boys, the very boobiest 
there, know that knife again when they saw it, and be 
able to pass a creditable competitive examination on all 
its ins and outs ? and wouldn't they remember " cutlery " 
for a clajr or two ! Well, the examination over, the 
minister performed an oration of much ambition and 
difficulty to himself and to us, upon the general question, 
and a great many other questions, into which his Gaelic 
subtilty fitted like the mists into the hollows of Ben-a- 
Houlich, with, it must be allowed, a somewhat similar 
tendency to confuse and conceal what was beneath ; and 
he concluded with thanking the Chief, as he well might, 
for his generous support of " this aixlent cemetery of 
sedication." Cemetery indeed ! The blind leading the 
blind, with the ancient result ; the dead burying their 
dead. 

Now, not greater is the change we made from that 
low, small, stifling, gloomy, mephitic room, into the glori- 
ous open air, the loch lying asleep in the sun, and telling 
over again on its placid face, as in a dream, every hill 
and cloud, and birch and pine, and passing bird and 
cradled boat ; the Black Wood of Rannoch standing " in 
the midst of its own darkness," frowning out upon us 
like the Past disturbed, and far off in the clear ether, as 
in another and a better world, the dim Shepherds of 
Etive pointing, like ghosts at noonday, to the weird 
shadows of Glencoe ; — not greater was this change, than 
is that from the dingy, oppressive, weary " cemetery " of 
mere word-knowledge to the open air, the light and lib- 
erty, the divine infinity and richness of nature and her 
teaching. 

We cannot change our time, nor would we if we could. 
It is God's time as well as ours. And our time is em- 



308 EDUCATION THROUGH THE SENSES. 

piratically that for achieving and recording and teaching 
man's dominion over and insight into matter and its 
forces — his subduing the earth ; but let us turn now 
and then from our necessary and honest toil in this neo- 
Platonic cavern where we win gold and renown, and 
where we often are obliged to stand in our own light, 
and watch our own shadows as they glide, huge and mis- 
shapen, across the inner gloom ; let us come out betimes 
with our gold, that we may spend it and get " goods " for 
it, and when we can look forth on that ample world of 
daylight which we can never hope to overrun, and into 
that overarching heaven where, amid clouds and storms, 
lightning and sudden tempest, there is revealed to those 
who look for them, lucid openings into the pure, deep 
empyrean, "as it were the very body of heaven in its 
clearness ; " and when, best of all, we may remember 
Who it is who stretched out these heavens as a tent to 
dwell in, and on whose footstool we may kneel, and out 
of the depths of our heart cry aloud, — 

Te Deum veneramur, 
Te Sancte Pater ! 

we shall return into our cave, and to our work, all the 
better of such a lesson, and of such a reasonable service, 
and dig none the worse. 

Science which ends in itself, or still worse, returns 
upon its maker, and gets him to worship himself, is worse 
than none ; it is only when it makes it more clear than 
before who is the Maker and Governor, not only of the 
objects, but of the subjects of itself, that knowledge is 
the mother of virtue. But this is an endless theme. 
My only aim in these desultory hints is to impress par- 
ents and teachers with the benefits of the study, the 



EDUCATION THROUGH THE SENSES. 309 

personal engagement — with their own hands and eyes, 
and legs and ears — in some form or another of natural 
history, by their children and pupils and themselves, as 
counteracting evil, and doing immediate and actual good. 
Even the immense activity in the Post-Office-stamp line 
of business among our youngsters has been of immense 
use in many ways, besides being a diversion and an in- 
terest. I myself came to the knowledge of Queensland, 
and a great deal more, through its blue twopenny. 

If any one wishes to know how far wise and clever 
and patriotic men may occasionally go in the way of 
giving " your son " a stone for bread, and a serpent for 
a fish, — may get the nation's money for that which is 
not bread, and give their own labor for that which satis- 
fies no one ; industriously making sawdust into the shapes 
of bread, and chaff into the appearance of meal, and 
contriving, at wonderful expense of money and brains, to 
show what can be done in the way of feeding upon wind, 
— let him take a turn through certain galleries of the 
Kensington Museum. 

" Yesterday forenoon," writes a friend, " I went to 
South Kensington Museum. It is really an absurd col- 
lection. A great deal of valuable material and a great 
deal of perfect rubbish. The analyses are even worse 
than I was led to suppose. There is an analysis of a 
man. First, a man contains so much water, and there 
you have the amount of water in a bottle ; so much albu- 
men, and there is the albumen ; so much phosphate of 
lime, fat, hasmatin, fibrine, salt, etc., etc. Then in the next 
case so much carbon ; so much phosphorus — a bottle 
with sticks of phosphorus ; so much potassium, and there 
is a bottle with potassium ; calcium, etc. They have not 
bottles of oxygen, hydrogen, chlorine, etc., but they have 



310 EDUCATION THROUGH THE SENSES. 

cubical pieces of wood on which is written ' the quantity 
of oxygen in the human body would occupy the space of 
170 (e. g.) cubes of the size of this,' etc., etc." "What 
earthly good can this do any one? 

No wonder that the bewildered beings whom I have 
seen wandering through these rooms, yawned more fre- 
quently and more desperately than I ever observed even 
in church. 

So then, cultivate observation, energy, handicraft, in- 
genuity, outness in boys, so as to give them a pursuit as 
well as a study. Look after the blade, and don't coax or 
crush the ear out too soon, and remember that the full 
corn in the ear is not due till the harvest, when the great 
School breaks up, and we must all dismiss and go our 
several ways. 



VAUGHAJTS POEMS, $c. 



^Ocra icrrl TrpocrcjiiXrj — tclvtcl Xoyt^eaOe. — St. Paul. 




VAUGHAN'S POEMS, &c. 

HAT do you think of Dr. Channing, Mr. 
Coleridge ? " said a brisk young gentleman 
to the mighty discourser, as he sat next 
him at a small tea-party. " Before enter- 
ing upon that question, sir," said Coleridge, opening 
upon his inquirer those ' noticeable gray eyes,' with a 
vague and placid stare, and settling himself in his seat 
for the night, " I must put you in possession of my 
views, in extenso, on the origin, progress, present con- 
dition, future likelihoods, and absolute essence of the 
Unitarian controversy, and especially the conclusions I 
have, upon the whole, come to on the great question of 
what may be termed the philosophy of religious differ- 
ence." In like manner, before telling our readers what 
we think of Henry Vaughan, the Silurist, or of " V.," 
or of Henry Ellison, the Bornnatural, or of E. V. K., 
it would have been very pleasant (to ourselves) to have 
given, in exte?iso, our views de Re Poeticd, its nature, 
its laws and office, its means and ends ; and to have 
made known how much and how little we agreed on 
these points with such worthies as Aristotle and Plato, 
Horace and Richard Baxter, Petronius Arbiter and 
Blaise Pascal, Ulric von Hiitten and Boileau, Hurdis 
and Hurd, Dr. Arnold and Montaigne, Harris of Salis- 



314 VAUGHAN'S POEMS, ETC. 

bury and his famous uncle, Burke and "John Buncle," 
Montesquieu and Sir Philip Sidney, Dr. Johnson and 
the two Wartons, George Gascoyne and Spenser's friend 
Gabriel Harvey, Puttenham and Webbe, George Her- 
bert and George Sand, Petrarch and Pinciano, Vida and 
Julius Caesar Scaliger, Pontanus and Savage Landor, 
Leigh Hunt and Quinctilian, or Tacitus (whichever of 
the two wrote the Dialogue De Oratoribus, in which 
there is so much of the best philosophy, criticism, and 
expression), Lords Bacon and Buchan and Dr. Blair, 
Dugald Stewart and John Dryden, Charles Lamb and 
Professor Wilson, Vinet of Lausanne and John Foster, 
Lord Jeffrey and the two brothers Hare, Drs. Fuller 
and South, John Milton and Dr. Drake, Dante and 
" Edie Ochiltree," Wordsworth and John Bunyan, Plu- 
tarch and Winkelman, the Coleridges, Samuel, Sara, 
Hartley, Derwent, and Henry Nelson, Sir Egerton 
Bridges, Victor Cousin and u the Doctor," George Moir 
and Madame de Stael, Dr. Fracastorius and Professor 
Keble, Martinus Scriblerus and Sir Thomas Browne, 
Macaulay and the Bishop of Cloyne, Collins and Gray 
and Sir James Mackintosh, Hazlitt and John Buskin, 
Shakspeare and Jackson of Exeter, Dallas and De 
Quincey, and the six Taylors, Jeremy, William, Isaac, 
Jane, John Edward, and Henry. We would have had 
great pleasure in quoting what these famous women and 
men have written on the essence and the art of poetry, 
and to have shown how strangely they differ, and how 
as strangely at times they agree. But as it is not re- 
lated at what time of the evening our brisk young gen- 
tleman got his answer regarding Dr. Channing, so it 
likewise remains untold what our readers have lost and 
gained in our not fulfilling our somewhat extensive desire. 



VAUGHAN'S POEMS, ETC 315 

It is with poetry as with flowers or fruits, and the de- 
licious juices of meats and fishes, we would all rather 
have them, and smell them, and taste them, than hear 
about them. It is a good thing to know all about a lily, 
its scientific ins and outs, its botany, its archaeology, its 
aesthetics, even its anatomy and " organic radicals," but 
it is a better thing to look at itself, and " consider " it 
how it grows — 

" White, radiant, spotless, exquisitely pure." 

It is one thing to know what your peach is, that it is 
the fruit of a rosal exogen, and is of the nature of a true 
drupe, with its carpel solitary, and its style proceeding 
from the apex, — that its ovules are anatropal, and that 
its putamen separates sponte sua from the sacrocarp ; to 
know, moreover, how many kinds of peaches and nec- 
tarines there are in the world, and how happy the Cana- 
dian pigs must be of an evening munching the downy 
odoriferous drupes under the trees, and what an aroma 
this must give to the resulting pork, 1 — it is another and 
a better thing to pluck the peach, and sink your teeth 
into its fragrant flesh. We remember only one excep- 
tion to this rule. Who has ever yet tasted the roast pig 
of reality which came up to the roast pig of Charles 
Lamb ? Who can forget " that young and tender suck- 
ling, under a moon old, guiltless as yet of the style, with 
no original speck of the amor immunditice — the hered- 
itary failing of the first parent, yet manifest, and which, 
when prepared aright, is, of all the delicacies in the mun- 
dus edibilis, the most delicate — obsoniorum facile prin- 

1 We are given to understand that peach-fed pork is a poor pork 
after all, and goes soon into decomposition. We are not sorry to 
know this. 



316 VAUGHAN'S POEMS, ETC. 

ceps — whose fat is not fat, but an indefinable sweet- 
ness growing up toward it — the tender blossoming of 
fat — fat cropped in the bud — taken in the shoot — 
in the first innocence, the cream and quintessence of 
the child-pig's yet pure food — the lean not lean, but a 
kind of animal manna — ccelestis — cibus ille angelorum 

— or rather shall we say, fat and lean (if it must be so) 
so blended and running into each other, that both to- 
gether make but one ambrosial result." But here, as 
elsewhere, the exception proves the rule, and even the 
perusal of " Original " Walker's delicious schemes of 
dinners at Lovegrove's, with flounders water-zoutched, 
and iced claret, would stand little chance against an in- 
vitation to a party of six to Blackwall, with " Tom 
Young of the Treasury " as Prime Minister. 

Poetry is the expression of the beautiful — by words 

— the beautiful of the outer and of the inner world ; 
whatever is delectable to the eye or the ear, the every 
sense of the body and of the soul — it presides over 
veras dulcedines rerum. It implies at once a vision 
and a faculty, a gift and an art. There must be the 
vivid conception of the beautiful, and its fit manifesta- 
tion in numerous language. A thought may be poet- 
ical, and yet not poetry; it may be a sort of mother 
liquor, holding in solution the poetical element, but 
waiting and wanting its precipitation, — its concentra- 
tion into the bright and compacted crystal. It is the 
very blossom and fragrancy and bloom of all human 
thoughts, passions, emotions, language ; having for its 
immediate object — its very essence — pleasure and de- 
lectation rather than truth ; but springing from truth, as 
the flower from its fixed and unseen root. To use the 
words of Puttenham in reference to Sir Walter Raleigh, 



VAUGHAN'S POEMS, ETC. 317 

poetry is a lofty, insolent (unusual) and passionate 
thing. 

It is not philosophy, it is not science, it is not moral- 
ity, it is not religion, any more than red is or ever can 
be blue or yellow, or than one thing can ever be another ; 
but it feeds on, it glorifies and exalts, it impassion- 
ates them all. A poet will be the better of all the wis- 
dom, and all the goodness, and all the science, and all 
the talent he can gather into himself, but qua poet he 
is a minister and an interpreter of to kol\6v, and of noth- 
ing else. Philosophy and poetry are not opposites, but 
neither are they convertibles. They are twin sisters ; — 
in the words of Augustine : — Philocalia et Philo- 
SOPHiA prope similiter cognominatce sunt, et quasi gen- 
tiles inter se videri volunt et sunt. Quid est enim Phi- 
losophia ? amor sapientice. Quid Philocalia ? amor pul- 
chritudinis. Germance igitur istce sunt prorsus, et eodem 
parente procreatce? Fracastorius beautifully illustrates 
this in his " Naugerius, sive De Poetic a Dialogus." He 
has been dividing writers, or composers as he calls them, 
into historians, or those who record appearances ; phi- 
losophers, who seek out causes ; and poets, who perceive 
and express veras pulchritudines rerum, quicquid max- 
imum et magnificum, quicquid pulcherrimum, quicquid 
dulcissimum ; and as an example, he says, if the his- 
torian describe the ongoings of this visible universe, I 
am taught ; if the philosopher announce the doctrine of 
a spiritual essence pervading and regulating all things, 
I admire ; but if the poet take up the same theme, and 



sing 



" Principio caelum ac terras camposque liquentes 
Lucentemque globum lunce, titaniaque astra 
Spiritus intus alit ; totamque infusaper artus 
Mens agitat molem et magno se corpore miscet." 



318 VAUGHAN'S POEMS, ETC. 

" Si inquam, eandem rem, hoc pacto referat mihi, non 
admirabor solum, sed adamabo : et divinum nescio quid, 
in animum mihi immissum existimabo" 

In the quotation which he gives, we at once detect the 
proper tools and cunning of the poet : fancy gives us 
liquentes campos, titania astra, lucentem globum lunce, 
and fantasy or imagination, in virtue of its royal and 
trarismuting power, gives us intus alit — infusa per ar- 
tus — and that magnificent idea, magno se corpore miscet 
— this is the divinum nescio quid — the proper work of 
the imagination — the master and specific faculty of the 
poet — that which makes him what he is, as the wings 
make a bird, and which, to borrow the noble words of 
the Book of Wisdom, " is more moving than motion, — 
is one only, and yet manifold, subtle, lively, clear, plain, 
quick, which cannot be letted, passing and going through 
all things by reason of her pureness ; being one, she can 
do all things ; and remaining in herself, she maketh all 
things new." 

The following is Fracastorius' definition of a man who 

not only writes verses, but is by nature a poet : " Est 

autem ille natura poeta, qui aptus est veris rerum pul- 

chritudinibus capi monerique ; et qui per illas loqui et 

scribere potest ; " and he gives the lines of Virgil, — 

" Aut sicutl nigrum 
Hicibus crebris sacra nemus accubat umbra" 

as an instance of the poetical transformation. All that 
was merely actual or informative might have been given 
in the words sicuti nemus, but fantasy sets to work, and 
videte, per quas pidchritudines, nemus depinxit ; addens 
accubat, et nigrum crebris Hicibus et sacra umbra! 
quam ob rem, recte Pontanus dicebat, jinem esse poetce, 
apposite dicer e ad admirationem, simpliciter, et per uni- 



VAUGHAN'S POEMS, ETC. 319 

versalem bene dicendi ideam. This is what we call the 
beau ideal, or kclt efo^i/ the ideal — what Bacon de- 
scribes as " a more ample greatness, a more exact good- 
ness, and a more absolute variety than can be found in 
the nature of things, the world being in proportion in- 
ferior to the soul, and the exhibition of which doth raise 
and erect the mind by submitting the shows of things to 
the desires of the mind." It is " the wondrous and goodly 
paterne " of which Spenser sings in his " Hymne in 
honour of Beautie : " — 

" What time this world's great Workmaister did cast 
To make al things such as we now behold, 
Jt seems that he before his eyes hadplast 
A goodly Paterne, to whose perfect mould 
He fashioned them, as comely as he could, 
That now so faire and seemly they appeare, 
As nought may be amended any wheare. 

" That wondrous Paterne wheresoere it bee, 
Whether in earth layd up in secret store, 
Or else in heaven, that no man may it see 
With sinfull eyes, for feare it to derlore, 
Is perfect Beautie, which all men adore — 
That is the thing that giveth pleasant grace 
To all things fair. 

" For through infusion of celestial powre 
The duller earth it quickneth ivith delight, 
And life -full spirits privily doth powre 
Through all the parts, that to the looker's sight 
They seeme to please." 

It is that " loveliness " which Mr. Ruskin calls " the 
signature of God on his works," the dazzling printings 
of His fingers, and to the unfolding of which he has 
devoted, with so much of the highest philosophy and 
eloquence, a great part of the second volume of " Mod- 
ern Painters." 



320 YAUGHAN'S POEMS, ETC 



But we are as bad as Mr. Coleridge, and are defraud- 
ing our readers of their fruits and flowers, their peaches 
and lilies. 

Henry Vaughan, " Silurist," as he was called, from his 
being born in South Wales, the country of the Silures, 
was sprung from one of the most ancient and noble fami- 
lies of the Principality. Two of his ancestors, Sir Roger 
Vaughan and Sir David Gam, fell at Agincourt. It is 
said that Shakspeare visited Scethrog, the family castle 
in Brecknockshire ; and Malone guesses that it was 
when there that he fell in with the word " Puck." 
Near Scethrog, there is Cwn-Pooky, or Pwcca, the 
Goblin's valley, which belonged to the Vaughans ; and 
Crofton Croker gives, in his Fairy Legends, a fac-simile 
of a portrait, drawn by a Welsh peasant, of a Pwcca, 
which (whom ?) he himself had seen sitting on a mile- 
stone, 1 by the roadside, in the early morning, a very 
unlikely personage, one would think, to say, — 

1 We confess to being considerably affected when we look at this 
odd little fellow, as he sits there with his innocent upturned toes, and 
a certain forlorn dignity and meek sadness, as of " one who once had 
wings." What is he? and whence? Is he a surface or a substance? 
is he smooth and warm ? is he glossy, like a blackberry ? or has he on 
him "the raven down of darkness," like an unfledged chick of night? 
and if we smoothed him, would he smile? Does that large eye wink? 
and is it a hole through to the other side? (whatever that may be;) 
and is that a small crescent moon of darkness swimming in its disc ? 
or does the eye disclose a bright light from within, where his soul sits 
and enjoys bright day? Is he a point of admiration whose head is too 
heavy, or a quaver or crotchet that has lost his neighbors, and fallen 
out of the scale? Is he an aspiring Tadpole in search of an idea? 
What have been and what will be the fortunes of this our small Nigel 
(Nigellus)'? Think of "Elia" having him sent up from the Goblin 
Valley, packed in wool, and finding him lively! how he and " Mary " 
would doat upon him, feeding him upon some celestial, unspeakable 
pap, " sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes, or Cytherea's breath." 



VAUGHAN'S POEMS, ETC. 321 

" I go, I go ; look how I go ; 
Swifter than arrow from the Tartar's bow." 

We can more easily imagine him as one of those 

Sprites — 

" That do run 
By the triple Hecat's team, 
From the presence of the Sun, 
Following darkness like a dream." 

Henry, our poet, was born in 1621 ; and had a twin- 
brother, Thomas. Newton, his birthplace, is now a 
farm-house on the banks of the Usk, the scenery of 
which is of great beauty. The twins entered Jesus Col- 
lege, Oxford, in 1638. This was early in the Great 
Rebellion, and Charles then kept his Court at Oxford. 
The young Vaughans were hot Royalists ; Thomas bore 
arms, and Henry was imprisoned. Thomas, after many 
perils, retired to Oxford, and devoted his life to alchemy, 
under the patronage of Sir Robert Murray, Secretary of 
State for Scotland, himself addicted to these studies. He 
published a number of works, with such titles as " An- 
throposophia Theomagica, or a Discourse of the Nature 
of Man, and his State after Death, grounded on his Cre- 
ator's Proto-chemistry ; " " Magia Adamica, with a full 
discovery of the true Ccelwn terrce, or the Magician's 
Heavenly Chaos and the first matter of all things." 

Henry seems to have been intimate with the famous 
wits of his time : " Great Ben," Cartwright, Randolph, 
Fletcher, &c. His first publication was in 1646: — 

How the brother and sister would croon over him "with murmurs 
made to bless," calling him their "tender novice " " in the first bloom 
of his nigritude," their belated straggler from the "rear of darkness 
thin," their little night-shade, not deadly, their infantile Will-o'-the- 
wisp caught before his sins, their " poor Blot," " their innocent Black- 
ness," their " dim Speck." 
21 



322 VAUGHAN'S POEMS, ETC. 

"Poems, with the Tenth Satyre of Juvenal Englished, 
by Henry Vaughan, Gent." After taking his degree in 
London as M. D., he settled at his birthplace, Newton, 
where he lived and died the doctor of the district About 
this time he prepared for the press his little volume, 
" Olor Iscanus, the Swan of Usk," which was afterwards 
published by his brother Thomas, without the poet's con- 
sent. We are fortunate in possessing a copy of this 
curious volume, which is now marked in the Catalogues 
as " Itariss" It contains a few original poems ; some 
of them epistles to his friends, hit off with great vigor, 
wit, and humor. Speaking of the change of times, and 
the reign of the Roundheads, he says, — 

" Here's brotherly Ruffs and Beards, and a strange sight 
Of high monumental Hats, tane at the fight 
Of eighty-eight ; while every Burgesse foots 
The mortal Pavement in eternall boots." 

There is a line in one of the letters which strikes us 
as of great beauty : — 

"Feed on the vocal silence of his eye." 

And there is a very clever poem Ad Amicum Fcenera- 
torem, in defiance of his friend's demand of repayment 
of a loan. 

There is great beauty and delicacy of expression in 
these two stanzas of an epithalamium : — 

" Blessings as rich and fragrant crown your heads, 
As the mild heaven on roses sheds, 
When at their cheeks (like pearls) they weare 
The clouds that court them in a tear. 

" Fresh as the houres may all your pleasures be, 
And healthfull as Eternitie ! 
Sweet as the flowre's first breath, and close 
As th' unseen spreadings of the Rose 



VAUGHAN'S POEMS, ETC. 323 



"When she unfolds her curtained head, 
And makes her bosome the Sun's bed! " 

The translations from Ovid, Boece, and Cassimir, are 
excellent. 

The following lines conclude an invitation to a 
friend : — 

" Come then ! and while the slow isicle hangs 
At the stiff e thatch, and Winter's frosty pangs 
Benumme the year, blithe as of old let us 
Mid' noise and war, of peace and mirth discusse. 
This portion thou wert born for. Why should we 
Vex at the time's ridiculous miserie? 
An age that thus hath fooled itself, and will, 
Spite of thy teeth and mine, persist so still. 
Let's sit then at this fire; and, while wee steal 
A revell in the Town, let others seal, 
Purchase, and cheat, and who can let them pay, 
Till those black deeds bring on the darksome day. 
Innocent spenders wee ! a better use 
Shall wear out our short lease, and leave the obtuse 
Rout to their husks. They and their bags at best 
Have cares in earnest. Wee care for a jest ! " 

When about thirty years of age, he had a long and 
serious illness, during which his mind underwent an 
entire and final change on the most important of all 
subjects ; and thenceforward he seems to have lived 
" soberly, righteously, and godly." 

In his Preface to the " Silex Scintillans" he says, 
" The God of the spirits of ail flesh hath granted me 
a further use of mine than I did look for in the body ; 
and when I expected and had prepared for a message of 
death, then did he answer me with life ; I hope to his 
glory, and my great advantage ; that I may flourish not 
with leafe only, but with some fruit also." And he 
speaks of himself as one of the converts of " that blessed 
man, Mr. George Herbert." 



324 VAUGHAN'S POEMS, ETC. 

Soon after, he published a little volume, called "Flores 
Solitudinis" partly prose and partly verse. The prose, 
as Mr. Lyte justly remarks, is simple and nervous, un- 
like his poetry, which is occasionally deformed with the 
conceit of his time. 

The verses entitled " St. Paulinus to his wife There- 
sia," have much of the vigor and thoughtfulness and 
point of Cowper. In 1655, he published a second 
edition, or more correctly a re-issue, for it was not re- 
printed, of his Silex Scintittans, with a second part 
added. He seems not to have given anything after this 
to the public, during the next forty years of his life. 

He was twice married, and died in 1695, aged 73, at 
Newton, on the banks of his beloved Usk, where he had 
spent his useful, blameless, and, we doubt not, happy life ; 
living from day to day in the eye of Nature, and in his 
solitary rides and walks in that wild and beautiful coun- 
try, finding full exercise for that fine sense of the beauty 
and wondrousness of all visible things, " the earth and 
every common sight," the expression of which he has so 
worthily embodied in his poems. 

In " The Retreate," he thus expresses this passionate 
love of Nature — 

" Happy those early dayes, when I 
Shin'd in my Angell-infancy ! 
Before I understood this place 
Appointed for my second race, 
Or taught my soul to fancy ought 
But a white, Celestiall thought; 
When yet I had not walkt above 
A mile or two from my first love, 
And looking back, at that short space, 
Could see a glimpse of his bright face ; 
When on some gilded Cloud or flowre 
My gazing soul would dwell an houre, 



VAUGHAN'S POEMS, ETC. 325 

And in those weaker glories spy 
Some shadows of eternity; 
Before I taught my tongue to wound 
My Conscience with a sinfule sound, 
Or had the black art to dispence 
A sev'rall sinne to ev'ry sence, 
But felt through all this fleshly dresse 
Bright shootes of everlastingnesse. 

how I long to travell back, 
And tread again that ancient track ! 
That I might once more reach that plaine, 
Where first I left my glorious traine ; 
From whence th' Inlightned spirit sees 
That shady City of Palme trees." 

To use the words of Lord Jeffrey as applied to Shak- 
speare, Vaughan seems to have had in large measure 
and of finest quality, " that indestructible love of flowers, 
and odors, and dews, and clear waters, and soft airs and 
sounds, and bright skies, and woodland solitudes, and 
moonlight, which are the material elements of poetry ; 
and that fine sense of their undefinable relation to mental 
emotion which is its essence and its vivifying power." 

And though what Sir Walter says of the country sur- 
geon is too true, that he is worse fed and harder wrought 
than any one else in the parish, except it be his horse ; 
still, to a man like Vaughan, to whom the love of nature 
and its scrutiny was a constant passion, few occupations 
could have furnished ampler and more exquisite mani- 
festations of her magnificence and beauty. Many of his 
finest descriptions give us quite the notion of their hav- 
ing been composed when going his rounds on his Welsh 
pony among the glens and hills, and their unspeakable 
solitudes. Such lines as the following to a Star were 
probably direct from nature on some cloudless night : — 

" Whatever 'tis, whose beauty here below 
Attracts thee thus, and makes thee stream and flow, 



326 VAUGHAN'S POEMS, ETC. 

And winde and curie, and wink and smile, 
Shifting thy gate and guile." 

He is one of the earliest of our poets who treats ex- 
ternal nature subjectively rather than objectively, in 
which he was followed by Gray (especially in his let- 
ters) and Collins and Cowper, and in some measure by 
Warton, until it reached its consummation, and perhaps 
its excess, in Wordsworth. 

We shall now give our readers some specimens from 
the reprint of the Silex by Mr. Pickering, so admirably 
edited by the Rev. H. F. Lyte, himself a true poet, of 
whose careful life of our author we have made very 
free use. 

The Timber. 

" Sure thou didst flourish once ! and many Springs, 
Many bright mornings, much dew, many showers 
Past o'er thy head: many light Hearts and Wings, 
Which now are dead, lodg'd in thy living bowers. 

" And still a new succession sings and flies ; 

Fresh groves grow up, and their green branches shoot 
Towards the old and still enduring skies ; 
While the low Violet thriveth at their root. 

" But thou beneath the sad and heavy Line 

Of death dost waste all senseless, cold and dark ; 
Where not so much as dreams of light may shine, 
Nor any thought of greenness, leaf or bark. 

" And yet, as if some deep hate and dissent, 

Bred in thy growth betwixt high winds and thee, 
Were still alive, thou dost great storms resent, 
Before they come, and know'st how near they be. 

" Else all at rest thou lyest, and the fierce breath 
Of tempests can no more disturb thy ease ; 
But this thy strange resentment after death 
Means only those who broke in life thy peace." 



VAUGHAN'S POEMS, ETC. 327 

This poem is founded upon the superstition that a tree 
which had been blown down by the wind gave signs of 
restlessness and anger before the coming of a storm from 
the quarter whence came its own fall. It seems to us full 
of the finest fantasy and expression. 

■ 
The World. 

" I saw Eternity the other night 
Like a great Ring of pure and endless light, 

All calm as it was bright ; 
And round beneath it, Time in hours, days, years, 

Driv'n by the spheres 
Like a vast shadow mov'd, in which the world 

And all her train were hurl'd." 

There is a wonderful magnificennce about this; and 
what a Bunyan-like reality is given to the vision by 
"the other night" ! 

Man. 

" Weighing the stedfastness and state 
Of some mean things which here below reside, 
Where birds like watchful Clocks the noiseless date 

And Intercourse of times divide, 
Where Bees at night get home and hive, and flowrs, 

Early as well as late, 
Rise with the Sun, and set in the same bowrs : 

" I would, said I, my God would give 
The staidness of these things to man ! for these 
To His divine appointments ever cleave, 

And no new business breaks their peace ; 
The birds nor sow nor reap, yet sup and dine, 

The flowres without clothes live, 
Yet Solomon was never drest so fine. 

"Man hath still either toyes or Care; 
He hath no root, nor to one place is ty'd, 



328 VAUGHAN'S POEMS, ETC. 

V 

But ever restless and Irregular 

About this Earth doth run and ride. 
He knows he hath a home, but scarce knows where; 

He says it is so far, 
That he hath quite forgot how to go there. 

" He knocks at all doors, strays and roams : 
Nay hath not so much wit as some stones have, 
Which in the darkest nights point to their homes 

By some hid sense their Maker gave : 

Man is the shuttle, to whose winding quest 

And passage through these looms 

God order' d motion, but ordain' d no rest." 

There is great moral force about this ; its measure and 
words put one in mind of the majestic lines of Shirley, 
beginning 

" The glories of our earthly state 

Are shadows, not substantial things." 

Cock-crowing. 

" Father of lights ! what Sunnie seed, 

What glance of day hast thou confin'd 
Into this bird ? To all the breed 
This busie Ray thou hast assign' d; 
Their magnetisme works all night, 
And dreams of Paradise and light. 

" Their eyes watch for the morning-hue, 
Their little grain expelling night 
So shines and sings, as if it knew 
The path unto the house of light. 

It seems their candle, howe'er done, 
Was tinn'd and lighted at the sunne." 

This is a conceit, but an exquisite one. 

Providence. 

" Sacred and secret hand ! 
By whose assisting, swift command 



VAUGHAN'S POEMS, ETC. 329 

The Angel shewd that holy Well, 

Which freed poor Hagar from her fears, 
And turn'd to smiles the begging tears 

Of yong distressed Ishmael." 

There is something very beautiful and touching in the 
opening of this on Providence, and in the " yong dis- 
tressed Ishmael." 

The Dawning. 

" Ah ! what time wilt thou come ? when shall that crie, 
The Bridegroome's Comming! fill the sky? 
Shall it in the Evening run 
When our words and works are done ? 
Or will thy all-surprizing light 

Break at midnight, 
When either sleep, or some dark pleasure 
Possesseth mad man without measure? 
Or shall these early, fragrant hours 

Unlock thy bowres ? 
And with their blush of light descry 
Thy locks crown'd with eternitie? 
Indeed, it is the only time 
That with thy glory doth best chime ; 
All now are stirring, ev'ry field 
Full hymns doth yield; 
The whole Creation shakes off night, 
And for thy shadow looks the light." 

This last line is full of grandeur and originality. 

The Law and the Gospel. 

u Lord, when thou didst on Sinai pitch, 
And shine from Paran, when a firie Law, 
Pronounc'd with thunder and thy threats, did thaw 
Thy People's hearts, when all thy weeds were rich, 
And Inaccessible for light, 
Terrour, and might; — 
How did poore flesh, which after thou didst weare, 

Then faint and fear ! 
Thy Chosen flock, like leafs in a high wind, 
Whisper'd obedience, and their heads inclin'd." 



330 VAUGHAN'S POEMS, ETC. 



The idea in the last lines, we may suppose, was sug- 
gested by what Isaiah says of the effect produced on 
Ahaz and the men of Judah, when they heard that 
Rezin, king of Syria, had joined Israel against them. 
" And his heart was moved, and the heart of his people, 
as the trees of the wood are moved by the winds" 

Holy Scriptures. 

" Welcome, dear book, soul's Joy and food ! The feast 

Of Spirits ; Heav'n extracted lyes in thee. 
Thou art life's Charter, The Dove's spotless nest 
Where souls are hatch' d unto Eternitie. 

"In thee the hidden stone, the Manna lies; 

Thou art the great Elixir rare and Choice ; 
The Key that opens to all Mysteries, 
The Word in Characters, God in the Voice." 

This is very like Herbert, and not inferior to him. 

In a poem having the odd mark of " %" and which 
seems to have been written after the death of some dear 
friends, are these two stanzas, the last of which is singu- 
larly pathetic : — 

" They are all gone into the world of light! 
And I alone sit lingring here ! 
Their very memory is fair and bright, 
And my sad thoughts doth clear. 

" He that hath found some fledg'd bird's nest may know 
At first sight if the bird be flown ; 
But what fair Dell or Grove he sings in now, 
That is to him unknown." 

Referring to Nicodemus visiting our Lord: — 

The Night. (John hi. 2.) 

" Most blest believer he ! 
Who in that land of darkness and blinde eyes 



VAUGHAN'S POEMS, ETC. 331 

Thy long expected healing wings could see, 
When thou didst rise ; 
And, what can never more be done, 
Did at midnight speak with the Sun ! 

" who will tell me where 
He found thee at that dead and silent hour? 
What hallow' d solitary ground did bear 
So rare a flower; 

Within whose sacred leaves did lie 

The fulness of the Deity? 

" No mercy-seat of gold, 
No dead and dusty Cherub, nor carved stone, 
But his own living works, did my Lord hold 
And lodge alone; 

Where trees and herbs did watch and peep 

And wonder, while the Jews did sleep. 

" Dear night! this world's defeat; 
The stop to busie fools; care's check and curb; 
The day of Spirits; my soul's calm retreat 
Which none disturb ! 

Christ's 1 progress and his prayer time; 

The hours to which high Heaven doth chime. 

"God's silent, searching flight: 
When my Lord's head is filled with dew, and all 
His locks are wet with the clear drops of night ; 
His still, soft call ; 

His knocking time; the soul's dumb watch, 

When spirits their Fair Kindred catch. 

" Were all my loud, evil days, 
Calm and unhaunted as is Thy dark Tent, 
Whose peace but by some Angel's wing or voice 
Is seldom rent; 

Then I in Heaven all the long year 

Would keep, and never wander here." 

1 Mark i. 35; Luke xxi. 37. 



332 VAUGHAN'S POEMS, ETC. 

At the end he has these striking words — 

" There is in God, some say, 
A deep but dazzling darkness " 

This brings to our mind the concluding sentence of 
Mr. Ruskin's fifth chapter in his second volume — " The 
infinity of God is not mysterious, it is only unfathom- 
able ; not concealed, but incomprehensible ; it is a clear 
infinity, the darkness of the pure, unsearchable sea? 
Plato, if we rightly remember, says — " Truth is the 
body of God, light is His shadow.'' 

Death. 

" Though since thy first sad entrance 
By just Abel's blood, 
'Tis now six thousand years well nigh, 
And still thy sovereignty holds good ; 
Yet by none art thou understood. 

" We talk and name thee with much ease, 
As a tryed thing, 
And every one can slight his lease, 
As if it ended in a Spring, 
Which shades and bowers doth rent-free bring. 

" To thy dark land these heedless go, 
But there was One 
Who search' d it quite through to and fro, 
And then, returning like the Sun, 
Discover' d all that there is done. 

" And since his death we throughly see 
All thy dark way ; 
Thy shades but thin and narrow be, 
Which his first looks will quickly fray : 
Mists make but triumphs for the day." 



VAUGHAN'S POEMS, ETC. 333 

The Water-fall. 

" With what deep murmurs, through time's silent stealth, 
Doth thy transparent, cool and watiy wealth 
Here flowing fall, 
And chide and call, 
As if his liquid, loose Retinue staid 
Lingring, and were of this steep place afraid." 

The Shower. 

" Waters above ! Eternal springs ! 
The dew that silvers the Dove's wings ! 
welcome, welcome to the sad! 
Give dry dust drink, drink that makes glad. 
Many fair Evenings, many flowers 
Sweetened with rich and gentle showers, 
Have I enjoyed, and down have run 
Many a fine and shining Sun ; 
But never, till this happy hour, 
Was blest with such an evening shower! " 

What a curious felicity about the repetition of " drink " 
in the fourth line. 

" Isaac's Marriage " is one of the best of the pieces, 
but is too long for insertion. 

"The Rainbow" 

has seldom been better sung : 

11 Still young and fine ! but what is still in view 
We slight as old and soil'd, though fresh and new. 
How bright wert thou, when Shem's admiring eye 
Thy burnisht, flaming Arch did first descry ! 
When Terah, Nahor, Haran, Abram, Lot, 
The youthful world's gray fathers in one knot, 
Did with intentive looks watch every hour 
For thy new light, and trembled at each shower ! 
When thou dost shine darkness looks white and fair, 
Forms turn to Musick, clouds to smiles and air : 



334 VAUGHAN'S POEMS, ETC. 

Rain gently spends his honey -drops, and pours 
Balm on the cleft earth, milk on grass and flowers. 
Bright pledge of peace and Sunshine ! the sure tye 
Of thy Lord's hand, the object 1 of His eye ! 
When I behold thee, though my light be dim, 
Distant and low, I can in thine see Him 
Who looks upon thee from His glorious throne, 
And mindes the Covenant 'twixt All and One. 

What a knot of the gray fathers ! 

"Terah, Nahor, Haran, Abram, Lot! " 

Our readers will see whence Campbell stole, and how 
he spoiled in the stealing (by omitting the word " youth- 
ful"), the well-known line in his "Rainbow" — 

" How came the world's gray fathers forth 
To view the sacred sign." 

Campbell did not disdain to take this, and no one will 
say much against him, though it looks ill, occurring in a 
poem on the rainbow ; but we cannot so easily forgive 
him for saying that " Vaughan is one of the harshest 
even of the inferior order of conceit, having some few 
scattered thoughts that meet our eye amidst his harsh 
pages, like wild flowers on a barren heath.'* 

" Rules and Lessons " is his longest and one of his 
best poems ; but we must send our readers to the book 
itself, where they will find much to make them grateful 
to " The Silurist " and to Mr. Pickering, who has already 
done such good service for the best of our elder literature. 

We have said little about the deep godliness, the spir- 
itual Christianity, with which every poem is penetrated 
and quickened. Those who can detect and relish this 
best, will not be the worse pleased at our saying little 
about it. Vaughan's religion is deep, lively, personal, 

l Gen. ix. 16. 



VAUGHAN'S POEMS, ETC. 335 

tender, kindly, impassioned, temperate, central. His re- 
ligion grows up, effloresces into the ideas and forms of 
poetry as naturally, as noiselessly, as beautifully as the 
life of the unseen seed finds its way up into the "bright 
consummate flower." 

Of " IX. Poems by V.," we would say with the 
Quarterly, /3ata fxlv aXka e POAA. They combine rare 
excellences ; the concentration, the finish, the gravity of 
a man's thought, with the tenderness, the insight, the 
constitutional sorrowfulness of a woman's — her purity, 
her passionateness, her delicate and keen sense and ex- 
pression. We confess we would rather have been the 
author of any one of the nine poems in this little volume, 
than of the somewhat tremendous, absurd, raw, loud, 
and fuliginous " Festus," with his many thousands of 
lines and his amazing reputation, his bad English, bad 
religion, bad philosophy, and very bad jokes — his " but- 
tered thunder " (this is his own phrase), and his poor 
devil of a Lucifer — we would, we repeat (having in 
this our subita ac sceva indignatio run ourselves a little 
out of breath), as much rather keep company with " V." 
than with Mr. Bailey, as we would prefer going to sea 
for pleasure, in a trim little yacht, with its free motions, 
its quiet, its cleanliness, to taking a state berth in some 
Fire- King steamer of one thousand horse- power, with 
his mighty and troublous throb, his smoke, his exasper- 
ated steam, his clangor, and fire and fury, his oils and 
smells. 

Had we time, and were this the fit place, we could, 
we think, make something out of this comparison of 
the boat with its sail and its rudder, and the unseen, 
wayward, serviceable winds playing about it, inspiring 



336 VAUGHAN'S POEMS, ETC. 

it, and swaying its course, — and the iron steamer, with 
its machinery, its coarse energy, its noises and philos- 
ophy, its ungainly build and gait, its perilousness from 
within ; and we think we could show how much of 
what Aristotle, Lord Jeffrey, Charles Lamb, or Edmund 
Burke would have called genuine poetry there is in the 
slender " V.," and how little in the big " Festus." We 
have made repeated attempts, but we cannot get through 
this poem. It beats us. We must want the Festus 
sense. Some of our best friends, with whom we gen- 
erally agree on such matters, are distressed for us, and 
repeat long passages with great energy and apparent 
intelligence and satisfaction. Meanwhile, having read 
the six pages of public opinion at the end of the third 
and People's edition, we take it for granted that it is 
a great performance, that, to use one of the author's own 
words, there is a mighty " somethingness" about it — and 
we can entirely acquiesce in the quotation from The Sun- 
day Times, that they " read it with astonishment, and 
closed it with bewilderment." It would appear from 
these opinions, which from their intensity, variety, and 
number (upwards of 50), are curious signs of the times, 
that Mr. Bailey has not so much improved on, as hap- 
pily superseded the authors of Job and Ecclesiastes, of 
the Divine Comedy, of Paradise Lost and Regained, 
of Dr. Faustus, Hamlet, and Faust, of Don Juan, the 
Course of Time, St. Leon, the Jolly Beggars, and the 
Loves of the Angels. 

He is more sublime and simple than Job — more roy- 
ally witty and wise, more to the quick and the point 
than Solomon — more picturesque, more intense, more 
pathetic than Dante — more Miltonic (we have no other 
word) than Milton — more dreadful, more curiously bias- 



VAUGHAN'S POEMS, ETC. 337 

phemous, more sonorous than Marlowe — more worldly- 
wise and clever, and intellectually svelt than Goethe. 
More passionate, more eloquent, more impudent than 
Byron — more orthodox, more edifying, more precocious 
than Pollok — more absorptive and inveterate than God- 
win ; and more hearty and tender, more of love and 
manhood all compact than Burns — more gay than 
Moore — more fjivpidvovs than Shakspeare. 

It may be so. We have made repeated and resolute 
incursions in various directions into his torrid zone, but 
have always come out greatly scorched and stunned 
and affronted. Never before did we come across such 
an amount of energetic and tremendous words, going 
" sounding on their dim and perilous way," like a cat- 
aract at midnight — not flowing like a stream, nor leap- 
ing like a clear waterfall, but always among breakers — 
roaring and tearing and tempesting with a sort of trans- 
cendental din ; and then what power of energizing and 
speaking, and philosophizing and preaching, and laugh- 
ing and joking and love-making, in vacuo ! As far as 
we can judge, and as far as we can keep our senses in 
such a region, it seems to us not a poem at all, hardly 
even poetical — but rather the materials for a poem, 
made up of science, religion, and love, the (very raw) 
materials of a structure — as if the bricks and mortar, 
and lath and plaster, and furniture, and fire and fuel and 
meat and drink, and inhabitants male and female, of a 
house were all mixed " through other " in one enormous 
imbroglio. It is a sort of tire-mist, out of which poetry, 
like a star, might by curdling, condensation, crystalliza- 
tion, have been developed, after much purging, refining, 
and cooling, much time and pains. Mr. Bailey is, we 
believe, still a young man full of energy — full, we doubt 
22 



338 VAUGHAN'S POEMS, ETC 

not, of great and good aims ; let him read over a passage, 
we dare say he knows it well, in the second book of Mil- 
ton on Church Government, he will there, among many- 
other things worthy of his regard, find that " the wily 
subtleties and refluxes of man's thoughts from within," 
which is the haunt and main region of his song, may be 
" painted out and described " with " a solid and treat- 
able smoothness" If he paint out and describe after 
this manner, he may yet more than make up for this 
sin of his youth ; and let him take our word for it and 
fling away nine tenths of his adjectives, and in the 
words of Old Shirley — 

" Compose his poem clean without 'em. 
A row of stately Substantives would march 
Like Switzers, and bear all the fields before 'em; 
Carry their weight; show fair, like Deeds enroll'd; 
Xot Writs, that are first made and after filed. 
Thence first came up the title of Blank Verse; — 
You know, sir, what Blank signifies ; — when the sense, 
First framed, is tied with adjectives like points, 
Hang 't, 'tis pedantic vulgar poetry. 
Let children, when they versify, stick here 
And there, these piddling words for want of matter. 
Poets write masculine numbers." 

Here are some of " V.'s " Roses — 

The Grave. 

" I stood within the grave's o'ershadowing vault; 
Gloomy and damp it stretch'd its vast domain ; 
Shades were its boundary; for my strain'd eye sought 
For other limit to its width in vain. 

" Faint from the entrance came a daylight ray, 
And distant sound of living men and things ; 
This, in th' encountering darkness pass'd away, 
That, took the tone in which a mourner sings. 

" I lit a torch at a sepulchral lamp, 

Which shot a thread of light amid the gloom ; 



VAUGHAN'S POEMS, ETC. 339 

And feebly burning 'gainst the rolling damp, 
I bore it through the regions of the tomb. 

" Around me stretch' d the slumbers of the dead, 
Whereof the silence ached upon my ear; 
More and more noiseless did I make my tread, 
And yet its echoes chill'd my heart with fear. 

" The former men of every age and place, 

From all their wand'rings gather'd, round me lay; 
The dust of wither'd Empires did I trace, 
And stood 'mid Generations pass'd away. 

'* I saw whole cities, that in flood or fire, 

Or famine or the plague, gave up their breath ; 
Whole armies whom a day beheld expire, 
Swept by ten thousands to the arms of Death. 

" I saw the old world's white and wave-swept bones, 
A giant heap of creatures that had been ; 
Far and confused the broken skeletons 
Lay strewn beyond mine eye's remotest ken. 

" Death's various shrines —the Urn, the Stone, the Lamp — 
Were scatter'd round, confused, amid the dead ; 
Symbols and Types were mould'ring in the damp, 
Their shapes were waning and their meaning fled. 

" Unspoken tongues, perchance in praise or woe, 
Were character'd on tablets Time had swept; 
And deep were half their letters hid below 

The thick small dust of those they once had wept. 

" No hand was here to wipe the dust away ; 
No reader of the writing traced beneath; 
No spirit sitting by its form of clay ; 
No sigh nor sound from all the heaps of Death. 

" One place alone had ceased to hold its prey; 
A form had pressed it and vms there no more ; 
The garments of the Grave beside it lay, 
Where once they wrapped him on the rocky floor. 

11 He only with returning footsteps broke 

Th? eternal calm wherewith the Tomb was bound; 



340 VAUGHAN'S POEMS, ETC. 

Among the sleeping Dead alone He woke, 

And bless' 'd with outstretched hands the host around. 

u Well is it that such blessing hovers here, 

To soothe each sad survivor of the throng, 
Who haunt the portals of the solemn sphere, 
And pour their woe the loaded air along. 

" They to the verge have follow' d what they love, 
And on th 1 insuperable threshold stand ; 
With cherished names its speechless calm reprove, 
And stretch in the abyss their ungrasjfd hand. 

" But vainly there they seek their soul's relief, 
And of th' obdurate Grave its prey implore ; 
Till Death himself shall medicine their grief, 
Closing their eyes by those they wept before. 

" All that have died, the Earth's whole race, repose 
Where Death collects his Treasures, heap on heap ; 
O'er each one's busy day, the nightshades close; 

Its Actors, Sufferers, Schools, Kings, Armies — sleep." 

The lines in italics are of the highest quality, both in 
thought and word ; the allusion to Him who by dying 
abolished death, seems to us wonderfully fine — sudden, 
simple, — it brings to our mind the lines already quoted 
from Vaughan : — 

" But there was One 
Who search' d it quite through to and fro, 
And then returning like the Sun, 
Discover' d all that there is done." 

What a rich line this is ! 

44 And pour their woe the loaded air along." 

" The insuperable threshold! " 

Do our readers remember the dying Corinne's words ? 
Je mourrais settle — an reste, ce moment se passe de se- 
cours ; nos amis ne peuvent nous suivre que jusqu'au 



VAUGHAN'S POEMS, ETC. 341 

seuil de la vie. La, commencent des pensees dont le 
trouble et la profondeur ne sauraient se confier. 

We have only space for one more — verses entitled 
" Heart's-Ease." 

Heart' s-Ease. 

" Oh, Heart's-Ease, dost thou lie within that flower? 
How shall I draw thee thence ? — so much I need 
The healing aid of thine enshrined power 
To veil the past — and bid the time good speed ! 

" I gather it — it withers on my breast; 

The heart's-ease dies when it is laid on mine ; 
Methinks there is no shape by Joy possess' d, 
Would better fare than thou, upon that shrine. 

" Take from me things gone by — oh ! change the past — 
Renew the lost — restore me the decay' d; — 
Bring back the days whose tide has ebb'd so fast — 
Give form again to the fantastic shade ! 

" My hope, that never grew to certainty, — 

My youth, that perish'd in its vain desire, — 
My fond ambition, crush'd ere it could be 
Aught save a self-consuming, wasted fire : 

" Bring these anew, and set me once again 
In the delusion of Life's Infancy — 
I was not happy, but I knew not then 
That happy I was never doom'd to be. 

" Till these things are, and powers divine descend — 
Love, kindness, joy, and hope, to gild my day, 
In vain the emblem leaves towards me bend, 
Thy Spirit, Heart's-Ease, is too far away! " 

We would fain have given two poems entitled " Bessy " 
and " Youth and Age." Everything in this little volume 
is select and good. Sensibility and sense in right meas- 
ure and proportion and keeping, and in pure, strong, 
classical language ; no intemperance of thought or phrase. 
Why does not " V." write more ? 



342 VAUGHAN'S POEMS, ETC. 

We do not very well know how to introduce our friend 
Mr. Ellison, " The Bornnatural," who addresses his 
" Madmoments to the Light-headed of Society at large." 
We feel as a father, a mother, or other near of kin would 
at introducing an ungainly gifted and much loved son or 
kinsman, who had the knack of putting his worst foot 
foremost, and making himself imprimis ridiculous. 

There is something wrong in all awkwardness, a want 
of nature somewhere, and we feel affronted even still, 
after we have taken the Bornnatural * to our heart, and 
admire and love him, at his absurd gratuitous self-befool- 
ment. The book is at first sight one farrago of oddities 
and offences — coarse foreign paper — bad printing — 
italics broad-cast over every page — the words run into 
each other in a way we are glad to say is as yet quite 
original, making such extraordinary monsters of words 
as these — beingsriddle — sunbeammotes — gooddeed — 
midjune — summerair — selffavor — seraphechoes — 
puredeedprompter — barkskeel, &c. Now we like 
Anglo-Saxon and the polygamous German, 2 but we 
like better the well of English undefiled — a well, by 
the by, much often er spoken of than drawn from ; but 
to fashion such words as these words are, is as monstrous 
as for a painter to compose an animal not out of the ele- 
ments, but out of the entire bodies of several, of an ass, 

1 In his Preface he explains the title Bornnatural, as meaning ik one 
who inherits the natural sentiments and tastes to which he was born, 
still artunsullied and customfree." 

2 ex. gr. — KonstantinopoUtanischerdudehacJcsjTfeiJwgeseUe. Here is 
a word as long as the sea-serpent — but, like it, having a head and 
tail, being what lawyers call union quid — not an up and down series 
of infatuated phocce, as Professor Owen somewhat insolently asserts. 
Here is what the Bornnatural would have made of it — 

A Constantinopolitanbagpiperoutofliisajpprenticeship. 



VAUGHAN'S POEMS, ETC. 343 

for instance, a cock and a crocodile, so as to produce an 
outrageous individual, with whom even a duck-billed Plat- 
ypus would think twice before he fraternized — ornitho- 
rynchous and paradoxical though he be, poor fellow. 

And yet our Bornnatural's two thick and closely small- 
printed volumes are as full of poetry as is an " impas- 
sioned grape " of its noble liquor. 

He is a true poet. But he has not the art of singling 
his thoughts, an art as useful in composition as in hus- 
bandry, as necessary for young fancies as young turnips. 
Those who have seen our turnip fields in early summer, 
with the hoers at their work, will understand our refer- 
ence. If any one wishes to read these really remarkable 
volumes, we would advise them to begin with " Season 
Changes " and " Emma, a Tale." We give two Odes on 
Psyche, which are as nearly perfect as anything out of 
Milton or Tennyson. 

The story is the well-known one of Psyche and Cupid, 
told at such length, and with so much beauty and pathos 
and picturesqueness by Apuleius, in his " Golden Ass." 
Psyche is the human soul — a beautiful young woman. 
Cupid is spiritual, heavenly love — a comely youth. 
They are married, and live in perfect happiness, but by 
a strange decree of fate, he comes and goes unseen, tarry- 
ing only for the night ; and he has told her, that if she 
looks on him with her bodily eye, if she tries to break 
through the darkness in which they dwell, then he must 
leave her, and forever. Her two sisters — Anger and 
Desire, tempt Psyche. She yields to their evil counsel, 
and thus it fares with her : — 

Ode to Psyche. 

" 1. Let not a sigh be breathed, or he is flown ! 

With tiptoe stealth she glides, and throbbing breast, 



344 VAUGHAN'S POEMS, ETC. 

Towards the bed, like one who dares not own 
Her purpose, and half shrinks, yet. cannot rest 
From her rash Essay : in one trembling hand 
She bears a lamp, which sparkles on a sword ; 
In the dim light she seems a wandering dream 
Of loveliness: 'tis Psyche and her Lord, 
Her yet unseen, who slumbers like a beam 
Of moonlight, vanishing as soon as scann'd! 

" 2. One Moment, and all bliss hath fled her heart, 
Like windstole odours from the rosebud's cell, 
Or as the earthdashed dewdrop which no art 
Can e'er replace: alas! we learn fullwell 
How beautiful the Past when it is o'er, 
But with seal'd eyes we hurry to the brink, 
Blind as the waterfall : oh, stay thy feet, 
Thou rash one, be content to know no more 
Of bliss than thy heart teaches thee, nor think 
The sensual eye can grasp a form more sweet — 

" 3. Than that which for itself the soul should chuse 
For higher adoration ; but in vain ! 
Onward she moves, and as the lamp's faint hues 
Flicker around, her charmed eyeballs strain, 
For there he lies in undreamt loveliness ! 
Softly she steals towards him, and bends o'er 
His slumberlidded eyes, as a lily droops 
Faint o'er a folded rose : one caress 
She would but dares not take, and as she stood, 
An oildrop from the lamp fell burning sore ! 

" 4. Thereat sleepfray'd, dreamlike the God takes Wing 
And soars to his own skies, while Psyche strives 
To clasp his foot, and fain thereon would cling, 
But falls insensate ; 

Psyche ! thou shouldst have taken that high gift 
Of Love as it was meant, that mystery 
Did ask thy faith, the Gods do test our worth, 
And ere they grant high boons our heart would sift ! 

" 5. Hadst thou no divine Vision of thine own? 
Didst thou not see the Object of thy Love 
Clothed with" a Beauty to dull clay unknown? 
And could not that bright Image, far above 



VAUGHAN'S POEMS, ETC. 345 

The Reach of sere Decay, content thy Thought ? 
Which with its glory would have wrapp'd thee round, 
To the Gravesbrink, untouched by Age or Pain ! 
Alas ! we mar what Fancy's Womb has brought 
Forth of most beautiful, and to the Bound 
Of Sense reduce the Helen of the Brain ! " 

What a picture ! Psyche, pale with love and fear, 
bending in the uncertain light, over her lord, with the 
rich flush of health and sleep and manhood on his cheek, 
" as a lily droops faint o'er a folded rose ! " We re- 
member nothing anywhere finer than this. 

Ode to Psyche. 

" 1. Why stand'st thou thus at Gaze 

In the faint Tapersrays, 
With strained Eyeballs fixed upon that Bed? 

Has he then flown away, 

Lost, like a Star in Day, 
Or like a Pearl in Depths unfathomed? 

Alas ! thou hast done very ill, 
Thus with thine Eyes the Vision of thy Soul to kill ! 

" 2. Thought'st thou that earthly Light 

Could then assist thy Sight, 
Or that the Limits of Reality 

Could grasp Things fairer than 

Imagination's Span, 
Who communes with the Angels of the Sky, 

Thou graspest at the Rainbow, and 
Wouldst make it as the Zone with which thy Waist is spanned ! 

" 3. And what find'st thou in his Stead? 

Only the empty Bed ! 

Thou songht'st the Earthly and therefore 
The heavenly is gone, for that must ever soar ! 

" 4. For the bright World of 

Pure and boundless Love 
What hast thou found ? alas ! a narrow room ! 



346 VAUGHAN'S POEMS, ETC. 

Put out that Light, 
Restore thy Soul its Sight, 
For better 'tis to dwell in outward Gloom, 
Than thus, by the vile Body's eye, 
To rob the Soul of its Infinity! 

" 5. Love, Love has Wings, and he 

Soon out of Sight will flee, 
Lost in far Ether to the sensual Eye, 

But the Soul's Vision true 

Can track him, yea, up to 
The Presence and the Throne of the Most High: 
For thence he is, and tho' he dwell below, 
To the Soul only he his genuine Form will show! " 

Mr. Ellison was a boy of twenty-three when he wrote 
this. That, with so much command of expression and 
of measure, he should run waste and formless and even 
void, as he does in other parts of his volumes, is very 
mysterious and very distressing. 

How we became possessed of the poetical Epistle from 
" E. V. K. to his Friend in Town," is more easily asked 
than answered. We avow ourselves in the matter to 
have acted for once on M. Proudhon's maxim — " La 
propriete c'est le vol" We merely say, in our defence, 
that it is a shame in " E. V. K.," be he who he may, to 
hide his talent in a napkin, or keep it for his friends alone. 
It is just such men and such poets as he that we most 
need at present, sober-minded and sound-minded and 
well-balanced, whose genius is subject to their judgment, 
and who have genius and judgment to begin with — a 
part of the poetical stock in trade with which many of 
our living writers are not largely furnished. The Epistle 
is obviously written quite off-hand, but it is the off-hand 
of a master, both as to material and workmanship. He 
is of the good old manly, classical school. His thoughts 



VAUGHAN'S POEMS, ETC. 347 

have settled and cleared themselves before forming into 
the mould of verse. They are in the style of Stewart 
Rose's vers de societe, but have more of the graphic force 
and deep feeling and fine humor of Crabbe and Cowper 
in their substance, with a something of their own which 
is to us quite as delightful. But our readers may judge. 
After upbraiding, with much wit, a certain faithless town- 
friend for not making out his visit, he thus describes his 
residence : — 

" Though its charms be few, 
The place will please you, and may profit too; — 
My house, upon the hillside built, looks down 
On a neat harbor and a lively town. 
Apart, 'mid screen of trees, it stands, just where 
We see the popular bustle, but not share. 
Full in our front is spread a varied scene — 
A royal ruin, gray, or clothed with green, 
Church spires, tower, docks, streets, terraces, and trees, 
Back'd by green fields, which mount by due degrees 
Into brown uplands, stretching high away 
To where, by silent tarns, the wild deer stray. 
Below, with gentle tide, the Atlantic Sea 
Laves the curved beach, and fills the cheerful quay, 
Where frequent glides the sail, and dips the oar, 
And smoking steamer halts with hissing roar." 

Then follows a long passage of great eloquence, truth, 
and wit, directed against the feverish, affected, unwhole- 
some life in town, before which he fears 

" Even he, my friend, the man whom once I knew, 
Surrounded by blue women and pale men," 

has fallen a victim ; and then concludes with these lines, 
which it would not be easy to match for everything that 
constitutes good poetry. As he writes he chides himself 
for suspecting his friend ; and at that moment (it seems 
to have been written on Christmas day) he hears the 



348 VAUGHAN'S POEMS, ETC. 

song of a thrush, and forthwith he " bursts into a song," 
as full-voiced, as native, as sweet and strong, as that of 
his bright-eyed feathered friend. 

"But, hark that sound! the mavis! can it be? 
Once more ! It is. High perched on yon bare tree, 
He starts the wondering winter with his trill ; 
Or by that sweet sun westering o'er the hill 
Allured, or for he thinks melodious mirth 
Due to the holy season of Christ's birth. — 
And hark ! as his clear fluting fills the air, 
Low broken notes and twitterings you may hear 
From other emulous birds, the brakes among; 
Fain would they also burst into a song; 
But winter warns, and muffling up their throats, 
They liquid — for the spring — preserve their notes. 
sweet preluding ! having heard that strain, 
How dare I lift my dissonant voice again ? 
Let me be still, let me enjoy the time, 
Bothering myself or thee no more with rugged rhyme." 

This author must not be allowed to " muffle up his 
throat," and keep his notes for some imaginary and far- 
off spring. He has not the excuse of the mavis. He 
must give us more of his own " clear fluting." Let him, 
with that keen, kindly and thoughtful eye, look from his 
retreat, as Cowper did, upon the restless, noisy world he 
has left, seeing the popular bustle, not sharing it, and let 
his pen record in such verses as these what his under- 
standing and his affections think and feel and his imagi- 
nation informs, and we shall have something in verse not 
unlike the letters from Olney. There is one line which 
deserves to be immortalized over the cherished bins of 
our wine-fanciers, where repose their 

"Dear prisoned spirits of the impassioned grape." 

What is good makes us think of what is better, as 
well, and it is to be hoped more, than of what is worse. 



VAUGHAN'S POEMS, ETC. 349 

There is no sweetness so sweet as that of a large and 
deep nature ; there is no knowledge so good, so strength- 
ening as that of a great mind, which is forever filling 
itself afresh. " Out of the eater comes forth meat ; out 
of the strong comes forth sweetness." Here is one of 
such " dulcedines verce " — the sweetness of a strong 
man : — 

" Now came still evening on, and twilight gray- 
Had in her sober livery all things clad ; 
Silence accompany'd; for beast and bird, 
They to their grassy couch, these to their nests, 
Were slunk, all but the wakeful nightingale ; 
She all night long her amorous descant sung ; 
Silence was pleased: now glow'd the firmament 
With living saphirs ; Hesperus that led 
The starry host rode brightest, till the moon, 
Rising in clouded majesty, at length 
Apparent queen unveil' d her peerless light, 
And o'er the dark her silver mantle threw." 

Were we inclined to do anything but enjoy this and 
be thankful — giving ourselves up to its gentleness, in- 
forming ourselves with its quietness and beauty, — we 
would note the simplicity, the neutral tints, the quietness 
of its language, the " sober livery " in which its thoughts 
are clad. In the first thirty-eight words, twenty-nine are 
monosyllables. Then there is the gradual way in which 
the crowning fantasy is introduced. It comes upon us 
at once, and yet not wholly unexpected ; it " sweetly 
creeps " into our " study of imagination ; " it lives and 
moves, but it is a moving that is " delicate ; " it flows in 
upon us incredihili lenitate. " Evening" is a matter of 
fact, and its stillness too — a time of the day ; and " twi- 
light " is little more. We feel the first touch of spiritual 
life in " her sober livery," and bolder and deeper in " all 
things clad." Still we are not deep, the real is not yet 



350 VAUGHAN'S POEMS, ETC. 

transfigured and transformed, and we are brought back 
into it after being told that " Silence accompanied," by 
the explanatory " for," and the bit of sweet natural his- 
tory of the beasts and birds. The mind dilates and is 
moved, its eye detained over the picture ; and then 
comes that rich, " thick warbled note " — " all but the 
wakeful nightingale ; " this fills and informs the ear, 
making it also " of apprehension more quick," and we 
are prepared now for the great idea coming " into the 
eye and prospect of our soul " — silence was pleased ! 
There is nothing in all poetry above this. Still evening 
and twilight gray are now Beings, coming on, and walk- 
ing over the earth like queens, " with Silence," 

" Admiration's speaking' st tongue," 

as their pleased companion. All is " calm and free," 
and " full of life," it is a " Holy Time." What a pic- 
ture ! — what simplicity of means ! what largeness and 
perfectness of effect ! — what knowledge and love of na- 
ture ! what supreme art ! — what modesty and submis- 
sion ! what self-possession ! — what plainness, what 
selectness of speech ! " As is the height, so is the depth. 
The intensities must be at once opposite and equal. As 
the liberty, so the reverence for law. As the indepen- 
dence, so must be the seeing and the service, and the sub- 
mission to the Supreme Will. As the ideal genius and 
the originality, so must be the resignation to the real 
world, the sympathy and the intercommunion with Na- 
ture." — Coleridge's Posthumous Tract "The Idea of Life " 

Since writing the above, our friend " E. V. K." has 
shown himself curiously unaffected by " that last in- 
firmity of noble minds," — his " clear spirit " heeds all 



VAUGHAN'S POEMS, ETC. 351 

too little its urgent " spur." The following sonnets are 
all we can pilfer from him. They are worth the steal- 
ing : — 

An Argument in Rhyme. 



" Things that now are beget the things to be, 
As they themselves were gotten by things past ; 
Thou art a sire, who yesterday but wast 
A child like him now prattling on thy knee ; 
And he in turn ere long shall offspring see. 
Effects at first, seem causes at the last, 
Yet only seem ; when off their veil is cast, 
All speak alike of mightier energy, 
Received and pass'd along. The life that flows 
Through space and time, bursts in a loftier source. 
What's spaced and timed is bounded, therefore shows 
A power beyond, a timeless, spaceless force, 
Templed in that infinitude, before 
Whose light-veil'd porch men wonder and adore. 

ii. 

" Wonder ! but — for we cannot comprehend, 
Dare not to doubt. Man, know thyself! and know 
That, being what thou art, it must be so. 
We creatures are, and it were to transcend 
The limits of our being, and ascend 
Above the Infinite, if we could show 
All that He is and how things from Him flow. 
Things and their laws by Man are grasp'd and kenn'd, 
But creatures must no more ; and Nature's must 
Is Reason's choice; for could we all reveal 
Of God and acts creative, doubt were just. 
Were these conceivable, they were not real. 
Here, ignorance man's sphere of being suits, 
'Tis knowledge self, or of her richest fruits. 

in. 

" Then rest here, brother ! and within the veil 
Boldly thine anchor cast. What though thy boat 
No shoreland sees, but undulates afloat 



352 VAUGHAN'S POEMS, ETC. 

On soundless depths ; securely fold thy sail. 

Ah ! not by daring prow and favoring gale 

Man threads the gulfs of doubting and despond, 

And gains a rest in being unbeyond, 

Who roams the furthest, surest is to fail; 

Knowing nor what to seek, nor how to find. 

Not far but near, about us, yea within, 

Lieth the infinite life. The pure in mind 

Dwell in the Presence, to themselves akin ; 

And lo ! thou sick and health-imploring soul, 

He stands beside thee — touch, and thou art whole." 



DR. CHALMERS. 



" Fervet immensnsque ruiV — Hon. 

" His memory long will live alone 

In all our hearts, as mournful light 
That broods above the fallen sun, 
And dwells in heaven half the night.''' 1 

Tennyson. 
" He ivas not one man, he was a thousand men." — Sydney Smith. 



23 



DK. CHALMERS. 




HEN, towards the close of some long sum- 
mer day, we come suddenly, and, as we 
think, before his time, upon the broad sun, 
" sinking down in his tranquillity " into the 
unclouded west, we cannot keep our eyes from the great 
spectacle, — and when he is gone the shadow of him 
haunts our sight: we see everywhere, — upon the spot- 
less heaven, upon the distant mountains, upon the fields, 
and upon the road at our feet, — that dim, strange, 
changeful image ; and if our eyes shut, to recover them- 
selves, we still find in them, like a dying flame, or like a 
gleam in a dark place, the unmistakable phantom of the 
mighty orb that has set, — and were we to sit down, as 
we have often done, and try to record by pencil or by 
pen, our impression of that supreme hour, still would it 
be there. We must have patience with our eye, it will 
not let the impression go, — that spot on which the radi- 
ant disk was impressed, is insensible to all other outward 
things, for a time : its best relief is, to let the eye wander 
vaguely over earth and sky, and repose itself on the mild 
shadowy distance. 

So it is when a great and good and beloved man de- 
parts, sets — it may be suddenly — and to us who know 
not the times and the seasons, too soon. We gaze eagerly 



356 DR. CHALMERS. 

at his last hours, and when he is gone, never to rise 
again on our sight, we see his image wherever we go, 
and in whatsoever we are engaged, and if we try to 
record by words our wonder, our sorrow, and our affec- 
tion, we cannot see to do it, for the " idea of his life " is 
forever coming into our " study of imagination " — into 
all our thoughts, and we can do little else than let our 
mind, in a wise passiveness, hush itself to rest. 
The sun returns — he knows his rising — 

" To-morrow he repairs his drooping head, 
And tricks his beams, and with new spangled ore 
Flames in the forehead of the morning sky; " 

but man lieth down, and riseth not again till the heavens 
are no more. Never again will he whose " Meditations " 
are now before us, lift up the light of his countenance 
upon us. 

We need not say we look upon him, as a great man, as 
a good man, as a beloved man, — quis desiderio sit pudor 
tarn cari capitis ? We cannot now go very curiously to 
work, to scrutinize the composition of his character, — 
we cannot take that large, free, genial nature to pieces, 
and weigh this and measure that, and sum up and pro- 
nounce ; we are too near as yet to him, and to his loss, 
he is too dear to us to be so handled. " His death," to 
use the pathetic words of Hartley Coleridge, " is a recent 
sorrow ; his image still lives in eyes that weep for him." 
The prevailing feeling is, — He is gone — " abiit ad 
plures — he has gone over to the majority, he has joined 
the famous nations of the dead." 

It is no small loss to the world, when one of its master 
spirits — one of its great lights — a king among the na- 
tions — leaves it. A sun is extinguished ; a great at- 
tractive, regulating power is withdrawn. For though it 



DR. CHALMERS. 357 

be a common, it is also a natural thought, to compare a 
great man to the sun ; it is in many respects significant. 
Like the sun, he rules his day, and he is " for a sign 
and for seasons, and for days and for years ; " he en- 
lightens, quickens, attracts, and leads after him his host 
— his generation. 

To pursue our image. When the sun sets to us, he 
rises elsewhere — he goes on rejoicing, like a strong man, 
running his race. So does a great man : when he leaves 
us and our concerns — he rises elsewhere ; and we may 
reasonably suppose that one who has in this world played 
a great part in its greatest histories — who has through 
a long life been preeminent for promoting the good of 
men and the glory of God — will be looked upon with 
keen interest, when he joins the company of the immor- 
tals. They must have heard of his fame ; they may in 
their ways have seen and helped him already. 

Every one must have trembled when reading that 
passage in Isaiah, in which Hell is described as moved 
to meet Lucifer at his coming : there is not in human 
language anything more sublime in conception, more 
exquisite in expression ; it has on it the light of the 
terrible crystal. But may we not reverse the scene ? 
May we not imagine, when a great and good man — a 
son of the morning — enters on his rest, that Heaven 
would move itself to meet him at his coming ? That it 
would stir up its dead, even all the chief ones of the 
earth, and that the kings of the nations would arise each 
one from his throne to welcome their brother ? that 
those who saw him would " narrowly consider him," and 
say, " is this he who moved nations, enlightened and 
bettered his fellows, and whom the great Taskmaster 
welcomes with ' Well done ! ' " 



358 DR. CHALMERS. 

We cannot help following him, whose loss we now 
mourn, into that region, and figuring to ourselves his 
great, childlike spirit, when that unspeakable scene bursts 
upon his view, when, as by some inward, instant sense, 
he is conscious of God — of the immediate presence of 
the All-seeing Unseen ; when he beholds " His honora- 
ble, true, and only Son," face to face, enshrined in " that 
glorious form, that light unsufFerable, and that far-beaming 
blaze of majesty," that brightness of His glory, that ex- 
press image of His person ; when he is admitted into 
the goodly fellowship of the apostles — the glorious com- 
pany of the prophets — the noble army of martyrs — 
the general assembly of just men — and beholds with 
his loving eyes the myriads of " little ones," outnum- 
bering their elders as the dust of stars with which 
the galaxy is filled exceeds in multitude the hosts of 
heaven. 

What a change ! death the gate of life — a second 
birth, in the twinkling of an eye : this moment, weak, 
fearful, in the amazement of death ; the next, strong, 
joyful, — at rest, — all things new ! To adopt his own 
words : all his life, up to the last, " knocking at a door 
not yet opened, with an earnest indefinite longing, — his 
very soul breaking for the longing, — drinking of water, 
and thirsting again " — and then — suddenly and at once 
— a door opened into heaven, and the Master heard 
saying, " Come in, and come up hither ! " drinking of 
the river of life, clear as crystal, of which if a man 
drink he will never thirst, — being filled with all the 
fulness of God ! 

Dr. Chalmers was a ruler among men : this we know 
historically ; this every man who came within his range 



DR. CHALMERS. 359 

felt at once. He was like Agamemnon, a native aVa£ 
avSpuv, and with all his homeliness of feature and de- 
portment, and his perfect simplicity of expression, there 
was about him " that divinity that doth hedge a king." 
You felt a power, in him, and going from him, drawing 
you to him in spite of yourself. He was in this respect 
a solar man, he drew after him his own firmament of 
planets. They, like all free agents, had their centrifugal 
forces acting ever towards an independent, solitary course, 
but the centripetal also was there, and they moved with 
and around their imperial sun, — gracefully or not, wil- 
lingly or not, as the case might be, but there was no 
breaking loose : they again, in their own spheres of 
power, might have their attendant moons, but all were 
bound to the great massive luminary in the midst. 

There is to us a continual mystery in this power of 
one man over another. We find it acting everywhere, 
with the simplicity, the ceaselessness, the energy of grav- 
itation ; and we may be permitted to speak of this influ- 
ence as obeying similar conditions ; it is proportioned to 
bulk — for we hold to the notion of a bigness in souls as 
well as bodies — one soul differing from another in quan- 
tity and momentum as well as in quality and force, and 
its intensity increases by nearness. There is much in 
what Jonathan Edwards says of one spiritual essence 
having more being than another, and in Dr. Chalmers's 
question, "Is he a man of wecht?" 

But when we meet a solar man, of ample nature — 
soul, body, and spirit ; when we find him from his ear- 
liest years moving among his fellows like a king, moving 
them whether they will or not — this feeling of mystery 
is deepened ; and though we would not, like some men 
(who should know better), worship the creature and con- 



360 DR. CHALMERS. 

vert a hero into a god, we do feel more than in other 
cases the truth, that it is the inspiration of the Almighty 
which has given to that man understanding, and that all 
power, all energy, all light, come to him, from the First 
and the Last — the Living One. God comes to be re- 
garded by us, in this instance, as he ought always to be, 
" the final centre of repose " — the source of all being, 
of all life — the Terminus ad quern and the Terminus a 
quo. And assuredly, as in the firmament that simple 
law of gravitation reigns supreme — making it indeed 
a kosmos — majestic, orderly, comely in its going — rul- 
ing, and binding not the less the fiery and nomadic com- 
ets, than the gentle, punctual moons — so certainly, and 
to us moral creatures to a degree transcendantly more 
important, does the whole intelligent universe move 
around and move towards and in the Father of Lights. 

It would be well if the world would, among the many 
other uses they make of its great men, make more of 
this, — that they are manifestors of God — revealers of 
His will — vessels of His omnipotence — and are among 
the very chiefest of His ways and works. 

As we have before said, there is a perpetual wonder in 
this power of one man over his fellows, especially when 
we meet with it in a great man. You see its operations 
constantly in history, and through it the Great Ruler has 
worked out many of His greatest and strangest acts. But 
however we may understand the accessory conditions by 
which the one man rules the many, and controls, and 
fashions them to his purposes, and transforms them into 
his likeness — multiplying as it were himself — there 
remains at the bottom of it all a mystery — a reaction 
between body and soul that we cannot explain. Gen- 
erally, however, we find accompanying its manifestation, 



DR. CHALMERS. 361 

a capacious understanding — a strong will — an emo- 
tional nature quick, powerful, urgent, undeniable, in 
perpetual communication with the energetic will and the 
large resolute intellect — and a strong, hearty, capable 
body ; a countenance and person expressive of this com- 
bination — the mind finding its way at once and in full 
force to the face, to the gesture, to every act of the body. 
He must have what is called a " presence ; " not that he 
must be great in size, beautiful, or strong ; but he must 
be expressive and impressive — his outward man must 
communicate to the beholder at once and without fail, 
something of indwelling power, and he must be and act 
as one. You may in your mind analyze him into his 
several parts ; but practically he acts in everything with 
his whole soul and his whole self; whatsoever his hand 
finds to do, he does it with his might. Luther, Moses, 
David, Mahomet, Cromwell — all verified these condi- 
tions. 

And so did Dr. Chalmers. There was something 
about his whole air and manner, that disposed you at 
the very first to make way where he went — he held 
you before you were aware. That this depended fully 
as much upon the activity and the quantity — if we may 
so express ourselves — of his affections, upon that com- 
bined action of mind and body which we call temper- 
ament, and upon a straightforward, urgent will, as upon 
what is called the pure intellect, will be generally al- 
lowed ; but with all this, he could not have been and 
done, what he was and did, had he not had an under- 
standing, in vigor and in capacity, worthy of its great 
and ardent companions. It was large, and free, mobile, 
and intense, rather than penetrative, judicial, clear, or 
fine, — so that in one sense he was more a man to 



362 DR. CHALMERS. 

make others act than think; but his own actings had 
always their origin in some fixed, central, inevitable 
proposition, as he would call it, and he began his on- 
set with stating plainly, and with lucid calmness, what 
he held to be a great seminal truth ; from this he passed 
at once, not into exposition, but into illustration and en- 
forcement — into, if we may make a word, overwhelming 
insistance. Something was to be done, rather than ex- 
plained. 

There was no separating his thoughts and expressions 
from his person, and looks, and voice. How perfectly 
we can at this moment recall him ! Thundering, flam- 
ing, lightening in the pulpit; teaching, indoctrinating, 
drawing after him his students in his lecture-room ; 
sitting among other public men, the most unconscious, 
the most king-like of them all, with that broad leonine 
countenance, that beaming, liberal smile ; or on the way 
out to his home, in his old-fashioned great-coat, with his 
throat muffled up, his big walking-stick moved outwards 
in an arc, its point fixed, its head circumferential, a sort 
of companion, and playmate, with which doubtless, he 
demolished legions of imaginary foes, errors, and stu- 
pidities in men and things, in Church and State. His 
great look, large chest, large head, his amplitude every 
way ; his broad, simple, childlike, inturned feet ; his 
short, hurried impatient step ; his erect, royal air ; his 
look of general good-will ; his kindling up into a warm 
but vague benignity when one he did not recognize 
spoke to him ; the addition, for it was not a change, of 
keen specialty to his hearty recognition ; the twinkle 
of his eyes ; the immediately saying something very 
personal to set all to rights, and then the sending you 
off with some thought, some feeling, some remembrance, 



DR. CHALMERS. 363 

making your heart burn within you ; his voice indescrib- 
able ; his eye — that most peculiar feature — not vacant, 
but asleep — innocent, mild, and large; and his soul, its 
great inhabitant, not always at his window ; but then, 
when he did awake, how close to you was that burning 
vehement soul ! how it penetrated and overcame you ! 
how mild, and affectionate, and genial its expression at 
his own fireside ! 

Of his portraits worth mentioning, there are Watson 
Gordon's, Duncan's — the Calotypes of Mr. Hill — 
Kenneth M'Leay's miniatures — the Daguerreotype, and 
Steell's bust. These are all good, and all give bits of 
him, some nearly the whole, but not one of them that 
rl Oepfjiov, that fiery particle — that inspired look — that 
" diviner mind " — the poco piu, or little more. Watson 
Gordon's is too much of the mere clergyman — is a 
pleasant likeness, and has the shape of his mouth, and 
the setting of his feet very good. Duncan's is a work 
of genius, and is the giant looking up, awakening, but 
not awakened — it is a very fine picture. Mr. Hill's 
Calotypes we like better than all the rest ; because what 
in them is true, is absolutely so, and they have some del- 
icate renderings which are all but beyond the power of 
any human artist ; for though man's art is mighty, na- 
ture's is mightier. The one of the Doctor sitting with 
his grandson " Tommy" is to us the best ; we have the 
true grandeur of his form — his bulk. M'Leay's is ad- 
mirable — spirited — and has that look of shrewdness 
and vivacity and immediateness which he had when he 
was observing and speaking keenly; it is, moreover, a 
fine, manly bit of art. M'Leay is the Raeburn of min- 
iature painters — he does a great deal with little. The 
Daguerreotype is, in its own way, excellent ; it gives the 



364 DR. CHALMERS. 

externality of the man to perfection, but it is Dr. Chal- 
mers at a stand-still — his mind and feelings " pulled 
up " for the second that it was taken. Steell's is a noble 
bust — has a stern heroic expression and pathetic beauty 
about it, and from wanting color and shadow and the 
eyes, it relies upon a certain simplicity and grandeur ; — 
in this it completely succeeds — the mouth is handled 
with extraordinary subtlety and sweetness, and the hair 
hangs over that huge brow like a glorious cloud. We 
think this head of Dr. Chalmers the artist's greatest 
bust. 

In reference to the assertion we have made as to bulk 
forming one primary element of a powerful mind, Dr. 
Chalmers used to say, when a man of activity and public 
mark was mentioned, ft Has he wecht ? he has prompti- 
tude — has he power ? he has power — has he prompti- 
tude ? and, moreover, has he a discerning spirit ? " 

These are great practical, universal truths. How 
few even of our greatest men have had all these three 
faculties large — fine, sound, and in "perfect diapason." 
Your men of promptitude, without power or judgment, 
are common and are useful. But they are apt to run 
wild, to get needlessly brisk, unpleasantly incessant. A 
weasel is good or bad as the case may be, — good against 
vermin — bad to meddle with ; — but inspired weasels, 
weasels on a mission, are terrible indeed, mischievous and 
fell, and swiftness making up for want of momentum by 
inveteracy ; " fierce as wild bulls, untamable as flies? 
Of such men we have nowadays too many. Men 
are too much in the way of supposing that doing is 
being; that theology and excogitation, and fierce dog- 
matic assertion of what they consider truth, is godliness ; 
that obedience is merely an occasional great act, and 



DR. CHALMERS. 365 

not a series of acts, issuing from a state, like the stream 
of water from its well. 

" Action is transitory — a step — a blow, 
The motion of a muscle — this way or that ; 
'Tis done — and in the after vacancy, 
We wonder at ourselves like men betrayed. 
Suffering" {obedience, or being as opposed to doing) — 

" Suffering is permanent, 

And has the nature of infinity." 

Dr. Chalmers was a man of genius — he had his own 
way of thinking, and saying, and doing, and looking 
everything. Men have vexed themselves in vain to 
define what genius is ; like every ultimate term we may 
describe it by giving its effects, we can hardly succeed 
in reaching its essence. Fortunately, though we know 
not what are its elements, we know it when we meet it; 
and in him, in every movement of his mind, in every 
gesture, we had its unmistakable tokens. Two of the 
ordinary accompaniments of genius — Enthusiasm and 
Simplicity — he had in rare measure. 

He was an enthusiast in its true and good sense ; he 
was "entheat," as if full of God, as the old poets called 
it. It was this ardor, this superabounding life, this im- 
mediateness of thought and action, idea and emotion, 
setting the whole man a-going at once — that gave a 
power and a charm to everything he did. To adopt the 
old division of the Hebrew Doctors, as given by Na- 
thanael Culverwel, in his " Light of Nature : " In man 
we have — 1st Trvzvfxa t^oiroiovv, the sensitive soul, that 
which lies nearest the body — the very blossom and 
flower of life ; 2d, t6v vovv, animam rationis, sparkling 
and glittering with intellectuals, crowned with light ; and 
3d, rbv 6v}jl6v, impetum animi, motum mentis, the vigor 



366 DR. CHALMERS. 

and energy of the soul — its temper — the mover of 
the other two — the first being, as they said, resident 
in hepate — the second in cerebro — the third in corde, 
where it presides over the issues of life, commands the 
circulation, and animates and sets the blood a-moving. 
The first and second are informative, explicative, they 
" take in and do " — the other " gives out." Now in Dr. 
Chalmers, the great ingredient was the 6 Ovfjcos as in- 
dicating vis animce et vitce, — and in close fellowship 
with it, and ready for its service, was a large, capa- 
cious 6 vovs, and an energetic, sensuous, rapid to 7rve£/xa. 
Hence his energy, his contagious enthusiasm — this it 
was which gave the peculiar character to his religion, 
to his politics, to his personnel ; everything he did was 
done heartily — if he desired heavenly blessings he 
" panted " for them — " his soul broke for the longing." 
To give again the words of the spiritual and subtle 
Culverwel, " Religion (and indeed everything else) was 
no matter of indifferency to him. It was Oep^ov n 7rpay- 
fxa, a certain fiery thing, as Aristotle calls love ; it re- 
quired and it got the very flower and vigor of the 
spirit — the strength and sinews of the soul — the prime 
and top of the affections — this is that grace, that pant- 
ing grace — we know the name of it and that's all — 
'tis called zeal — a flaming edge of the affection — the 
ruddy complexion of the soul." Closely connected with 
this temperament, and with a certain keen sensation of 
truth, rather than a perception of it, if we may so ex- 
press ourselves, an intense consciousness of objective 
reality, — was his simple animating faith. He had faith 
in God — faith in human nature — faith, if we may say 
so, in his own instincts — in his ideas of men and things 
— in himself; and the result was, that unhesitating bear- 



DR. CHALMERS. 367 

ing up and steering right onward — " never bating one 
jot of heart or hope " so characteristic of him. He had 
" the substance of things hoped for." He had " the evi- 
dence of things not seen." 

By his simplicity we do not mean the simplicity of the 
head — of that he had none ; he was eminently shrewd 
and knowing — more so than many thought ; but we 
refer to that quality of the heart and of the life, ex- 
pressed by the words, " in simplicity a child." In his 
own words, from his Daily Readings, — 

" When a child is filled with any strong emotion by a surprising 
event or intelligence, it runs to discharge it on others, impatient of 
their sympathy; and it marks, I fancy, the simplicity! and greater 
naturalness of this period (Jacob's), that the grown-up men and 
women ran to meet each other, giving way to their first impulses 
— even as children do." 

His emotions were as lively as a child's, and he ran 
to discharge them. There was in all his ways a cer- 
tain beautiful unconsciousness of self — an outgoing of 
the whole nature that we see in children, who are by 
learned men said to be long ignorant of the Ego — 
blessed in many respects in their ignorance ! This same 
Ego, as it now exists, being perhaps part of " the fruit 
of that forbidden tree ; " that mere knowledge of good 
as well as of evil, which our great mother bought for 
us at such a price. In this meaning of the word, Dr. 
Chalmers, considering the size of his understanding — 
his personal eminence — his dealings with the world — 
his large sympathies — his scientific knowledge of mind 
and matter — his relish for the practical details, and 
for the spirit of public business — was quite singular 
for his simplicity ; and taking this view of it, there 
was much that was plain and natural in his manner of 



368 DR. CHALMERS. 

thinking and acting, which otherwise was obscure, and 
liable to be misunderstood. We cannot better explain 
what we mean than by giving a passage from Fene- 
lon, which D'Alembert, in his Eloge, quotes as char- 
acteristic of that " sweet-souled " prelate. We give the 
passage entire, as it seems to us to contain a very 
beautiful, and by no means commonplace truth : — 

"F&idlon," says D'Alembert, "a caracterise lui-meme en peu de 
mots cette simplicity qui se rendoit si cher a tous les coeurs, 'La 
simplicity est la droiture d'une ame qui s'interdit tout retour sur 
elle et sur ses actions — cette vertu est diffe>ente de la sincerite, et 
la surpasse. On voit beaucoup de gens qui sont sinceres sans etre 
simples — Us ne veulent passer que pour ce qu'ils sont, mais ils 
craignent sans cesse de passer pour ce qu'ils ne sont pas. L'homme 
simple n'affecte ni la vertu, ni la verite" meme; il n'est jamais oc- 
cupe' de lui, il semble d'avoir perdu ce moi dont on est si jaloux.' " 

What delicacy and justness of expression ! how true 
and clear! how little we see nowadays, among grown- 
up men, of this straightness of the soul — of this los- 
ing or never finding " ce moi I " There is more than 
is perhaps generally thought in this. Man in a state of 
perfection, would no sooner think of asking himself — 
am I right ? am I appearing to be what inwardly I 
am ? than the eye asks itself — do I see ? or a child 
says to itself — do I love my mother ? We have lost 
this instinctive sense; we have set one portion of our- 
selves aside to watch the rest ; we must keep up ap- 
pearances and our consistency ; we must respect — that 
is, look back upon — ourselves, and be respected, if 
possible ; we must, by hook or by crook, be respect- 
able. 

Dr. Chalmers would have made a sorry Balaam ; he 
was made of different stuff, and for other purposes. Your 
" respectable " men are ever doing their best to keep 



DR. CHALMERS. 369 

their status, to maintain their position. He never troub- 
led himself about his status ; indeed, we would say status 
was not the word for him. He had a sedes on which 
he sat, and from which he spoke ; he had an imperium, 
to and fro which he roamed as he listed ; but a status 
was as little in his way as in that of a Mauritanian 
lion. Your merely " sincere " men are always thinking 
of what they said yesterday, and what they may say to- 
morrow, at the very moment when they should be put- 
ting their whole self into to-day. Full of his idea, pos- 
sessed by it, moved altogether by its power, — believing, 
he spoke, and without stint or fear, often apparently 
contradicting his former self — careless about everything, 
but speaking fully his mind. One other reason for his 
apparent inconsistencies was, if one may so express it, 
the spaciousness of his nature. He had room in that 
capacious head, and affection in that great, hospitable 
heart, for relishing and taking in the whole range of 
human thought and feeling. He was several men in 
one. Multitudinous but not multiplex, in him odd and 
apparently incongruous notions dwelt peaceably together. 
The lion lay down with the lamb. Voluntaryism and 
an endowment — both were best. 

He was childlike in his simplicity ; though in under- 
standing a man, he was himself in many things a child. 
Coleridge says, every man should include all his former 
selves in his present, as a tree has its former years' 
growths inside its last ; so Dr. Chalmers bore along with 
him his childhood, his youth, his early and full man- 
hood into his mature old age. This gave himself, we 
doubt not, infinite delight — multiplied his joys, strength- 
ened and sweetened his whole nature, and kept his 
heart young and tender ; it enabled him to sympathize, 
24 



370 DR. CHALMERS. 

to have a fellow-feeling with all, of whatever age. 
Those who best knew him, who were most habitually 
with him, know how beautifully this point of his char- 
acter shone out in daily, hourly life. We well re- 
member long ago loving him before we had seen him 

— from our having been told, that being out one 
Saturday at a friend's house near the Pentlands, he 
collected all the children and small people — the other 
bairns, as he called them — and with no one else of 
his own growth, took the lead to the nearest hill-top, 

— how he made each take the biggest and roundest 
stone he could find, and carry, — how he panted up the 
hill himself with one of enormous size, — how he kept 
up their hearts, and made them shout with glee, with 
the light of his countenance, and with all his pleasant 
and strange ways and words, — how having got the 
breathless little men and women to the top of the hill, 
he, hot and scant of breath — looked round on the world 
and upon them with his broad benignant smile like the 
avrjptdfjiov KVfjLarw yeXaafia — the unnumbered laughter 
of the sea, — how he set off his own huge " fellow,'' — 
how he watched him setting out on his race, slowly, 
stupidly, vaguely at first, almost as if he might die be- 
fore he began to live, then suddenly giving a spring and 
off like a shot — bounding, tearing, aSns cVen-a wiSovSe 
KvXivSero A.aas di/atS^s, vires acquirens eundo ; how the 
great and good man was tot us in illo ; how he spoke 
to, upbraided him, cheered him, gloried in him, all but 
prayed for him, — how he joked philosophy to his won- 
dering and ecstatic crew, when he (the stone) disap- 
peared among some brackens — telling them they had 
the evidence of their senses that he was in, they might 
even know he was there by his effects, by the moving 



DR. CHALMERS. 371 

brackens, himself unseen ; how plain it became that he 
had gone in, when he actually came out ! — how he ran 
up the opposite side a bit, and then fell back, and lazily 
expired at the bottom, — how to their astonishment, 
but not displeasure — for he " set them off so well," and 
" was so funny " — he took from each his cherished stone, 
and set it off himself! showing them how they all ran 
alike, yet differently ; how he went on, " making," as 
he said, "an induction of particulars," till he came to 
the Benjamin of the flock, a wee wee man, who had 
brought up a stone bigger than his own big head ; then 
how he let him, unicus omnium, set off his own, and 
how wonderfully it ran ! what miraculous leaps ! what 
escapes from impossible places ! and how it ran up the 
other side farther than any, and by some felicity re- 
mained there. 

He was an orator in its specific and highest sense. 
We need not prove this to those who have heard him ; 
we cannot to those who have not. It was a living man 
sending living, burning words into the minds and hearts 
of men before him, radiating his intense fervor upon them 
all ; but there was no reproducing the entire effect when 
alone and cool ; some one of the elements was gone. We 
say nothing of this part of his character, because upon 
this all are agreed. His eloquence rose like a tide, a 
sea, setting in, bearing down upon you, lifting up all its 
waves — " deep calling unto deep ; " there was no doing 
anything but giving yourself up for the time to its will. 
Do our readers remember Horace's description of Pin- 
dar ? 

" Monte decurrens velut amnis, imbres 
Quern super notas aluere ripas, 



372 DR. CHALMERS. 

Fervet, imraensusque ruit profundo 
Pindarus ore : 

' per audaces nova dithyrambos 

Verba devolvit, numerisque fertur 
Lege solutis.' " 

This is to our mind singularly characteristic of our per- 
fervid Scotsman. If we may indulge our conceit we 
would paraphrase it thus. His eloquence was like a 
flooded Scottish river, — it had its origin in some ex- 
alted region — in some mountain-truth — some high, im- 
mutable reality ; it did not rise in a plain, and quietly 
drain its waters to the sea, — it came sheer down from 
above. He laid hold of some simple truth — the love 
of God, the Divine method of justification, the unchange- 
ableness of human nature, the supremacy of conscience, 
the honorableness of all men ; and having got this viv- 
idly before his mind, on he moved — the river rose at 
once, drawing everything into its course — 

" All thoughts, all passions, all desires, — 
Whatever stirs this mortal frame, 7 ' 

things outward and things inward, interests immediate 
and remote — God and eternity — men, miserable and 
immortal — this world and the next — clear light and 
unsearchable mystery — the word and the works of God 
— everything contributed to swell the volume and add 
to the onward and widening flood. His river did not 
flow like Denham's Thames, — 

"Though deep yet clear, though gentle yet not dull; 
Strong without rage, without o'erflowing full." 

There was strength, but there was likewise rage ; a 
fine frenzy — not unoften due mainly to its rapidity and 
to its being raised suddenly by his affections ; there was 



DR. CHALMERS. 373 

some confusion in the stream of his thoughts, some over- 
flowing of the banks, some turbulence, and a certain 
noble immensity ; but its origin was clear and calm, 
above the region of clouds and storms. If you saw it ; 
if you took up and admitted his proposition, his starting 
idea, then all else moved on ; but once set a-going, once 
on his way, there w T as no pausing to inquire, why or 
how — fervet — ruit — fertur, he boils — he rushes — 
he is borne along ; and so are all who hear him. 

To go on with our figure — There was no possibility 
of sailing up his stream. You must go with him, or you 
must go ashore. This was a great peculiarity with him, 
and puzzled many people. You could argue with him, 
and get him to entertain your ideas on any purely ab- 
stract or simple proposition, — at least for a time ; but 
once let him get down among practicals, among appli- 
cations of principles, into the regions of the affections 
and active powers, and such was the fervor and impet- 
uosity of his nature, that he could not stay leisurely to 
discuss, he could not then entertain the opposite ; it was 
hurried off, and made light of, and disregarded, like a 
floating thing before a cataract. 

To play a little more with our conceit — The greatest 
man is he who is both born and made — who is at once 
poetical and scientific — who has genius and talent — 
each supporting the other. So with rivers. Your 
mighty world's river rises in high and lonely places, 
among the everlasting hills ; amidst clouds, or inacces- 
sible clearness. On he moves, gathering to himself all 
waters ; refreshing, cheering all lands. Here a cataract, 
there a rapid ; now lingering in some corner of beauty, 
as if loath to go. Now shallow and wide, rippling and 
laughing in his glee ; now deep, silent, and slow ; now 



374 DR. CHALMERS. 

narrow and rapid and deep, and not to be meddled with. 
Now in the open country ; not so clear, for other waters 
have come in upon him, and he is becoming useful, no 
longer turbulent, — travelling more contentedly ; now 
he is navigable, craft of all kinds coming and going 
upon his surface forever ; and then, as if by some gentle 
and great necessity, " deep and smooth, passing with a 
still foot and a sober face," he pays his last tribute to 
" the Fiscusj the great Exchequer, the sea," — running 
out fresh, by reason of his power and volume, into the 
main for many a league. 

Your mere genius, who has instincts, and is poetical 
and not scientific, who grows from within — he is like 
our mountain river, clear, wilful, odd ; running round 
corners ; disappearing it may be under ground, coming 
up again quite unexpectedly and strong, as if fed from 
some unseen spring, deep down in darkness ; rising in 
flood without warning, and coming down like a lion ; 
often all but dry; never to be trusted to for driving 
mills ; must at least be tamed and led off to the mill ; 
and going down full pace, and without stop or stay, into 
the sea. 

Your man of talent, of acquirements, of science — who 
is made, — who is not so much educed as edified ; who, 
instead of acquiring his vires eundo, gets his vires ewidi, 
from acquirement, and grows from without ; who serves 
his brethren and is useful ; he rises often no one knows 
where or cares ; has perhaps no proper fountain at all, 
but is the result of the gathered rain-water in the higher 
flats ; he is never quite clear, never brisk, never dan- 
gerous ; always from the first useful, and goes pleasantly 
in harness ; turns mills ; washes rags — makes them into 
paper ; carries down all manner of dye-stuffs and fecu- 



DR. CHALMERS. 375 

lence ; and turns a bread-mill to as good purpose as any 
clearer stream ; is docile, and has, as he reaches the sea, 
in his dealings with the world, a river trust, who look 
after his and their own interests, and dredge him, and 
deepen him, and manage him, and turn him off into 
docks, and he is in the sea before he or you know it. 

Though we do not reckon the imagination of Dr. 
Chalmers among his master faculties, it was powerful, 
effective, magnificent. It did not move him, he took it up 
as he went along ; its was not that imperial, penetrating, 
transmuting function that we find it in Dante, in Jeremy 
Taylor, in Milton, or in Burke ; he used it to emblazon 
his great central truths, to hang clouds of glory on the 
skirts of his illustration ; but it was too passionate, too 
material, too encumbered with images, too involved in 
the general melee of the soul, to do its work as a master. 
It was not in him, as Thomas Fuller calls it, " that in- 
ward sense of the soul, its most boundless and restless 
faculty ; for while the understanding and the will are 
kept as it were in libera custodia to their objects of 
verum et bonum, it is free from all engagements — digs 
without spade, flies without wings, builds without charges, 
in a moment striding from the centre to the circumfer- 
ence of the world by a kind of omnipotency, creating 
and annihilating things in an instant — restless, ever 
working, never wearied." We may say, indeed, that 
men of his temperament are not generally endowed with 
this power in largest measure ; in one sense they can do 
without it, in another they want the conditions on which 
its highest exercise depends. Plato and Milton, Shak- 
speare and Dante, and Wordsworth, had imaginations 
tranquil, sedate, cool, originative, penetrative, intense, 



376 DK. CHALMERS. 

which dwelt in the " highest heaven of invention." 
Hence it was that Chalmers could personify or paint 
a passion ; he could give it in one of its actions ; he 
could not, or rather he never did impassionate, create, 
and vivify a person — a very different thing from per- 
sonifying a passion — all the difference, as Henry Taylor 
says, between Byron and Shakspeare. 

In his impetuosity, we find the rationale of much that 
is peculiar in the style of Dr. Chalmers. As a spoken 
style it was thoroughly effective. 1 He seized the nearest 

1 We have not noticed his iterativeness, his reiterativeness, because 
it flowed naturally from his primary qualities. In speaking it was 
effective, and to us pleasing, because there was some new modulation, 
some addition in the manner, just as the sea never sets up one wave 
exactly like the last or the next. But in his books it did somewhere 
encumber his thoughts, and the reader's progress and profit. It did 
not arise, as in many lesser men, from his having said his say — from 
his having no more in him ; much less did it arise from conceit, either 
of his idea or of his way of stating it; but from the intensity with 
which the sensation of the idea — if we may use the expression — 
made its first mark on his mind. Truth to him never seemed to lose 
its first freshness, its edge, its flavor; and Divine truth, we know, had 
come to him so suddenly, so fully, at mid-day, when he was in the 
very prime of his knowledge and his power and quickness — had so 
possessed his entire nature, as if, like him who was journeying to 
Damascus, a Great Light had shone round about him — that whenever 
he reproduced that condition, he began afresh, and with his whole 
utterance, to proclaim it. He could not but speak the things he had 
seen and felt, and heard and believed; and he did it much in the same 
way, and in the same words, for the thoughts and affections and pos- 
ture of his soul were the same. Like all men of vivid perception and 
keen sensibility, his mind and his body continued under impressions, 
both material and spiritual, after the objects were gone. A curious 
instance of this occurs to us. Some years ago, he roamed up and 
down through the woods near Auchindinny, with two boys as com- 
panions. It was the first burst of summer, and the trees were more 
than usually enriched with leaves. He wandered about delighted, 
silent, looking at the leaves, "thick and numberless." As the three 
went on, they came suddenly upon a high brick wall, newly built, for 



DR. CHALMERS. 377 

weapons, and smote down whatever lie hit. But from 
this very vehemence, this haste, there was in his general 
style a want of correctness, of selectness, of nicety, of 
that curious felicity which makes thought immortal, and 
enshrines it in imperishable crystal. In the language of 
the affections he was singularly happy ; but in a formal 
statement, rapid argumentation and analysis, he was often 
as we might think, uncouth, and imperfect, and incorrect : 
chiefly owing to his temperament, to his fiery, impatient, 
swelling spirit, this gave his orations their fine audacity 

— this brought out hot from the furnace, his new words 

— this made his numbers run wild — lege solutis. We 
are sure this view will be found confirmed by these 
" Daily Keadings," when he w^rote little, and had not 
time to get heated, and when the nature of the work, the 
hour at which it was done, and his solitariness, made his 
thoughts flow at their " own sweet will ; " they are often 
quite as classical in expression, as they are deep and 
lucid in thought — reflecting heaven with its clouds and 
stars, and letting us see deep down into its own secret 
depths : this is to us one great charm of these volumes. 
Here he is broad and calm ; in his great public per- 
formances by mouth and pen, he soon passed from the 
lucid into the luminous. 

What, for instance, can be finer in expression than 
this ? " It is well to be conversant with great elements 

— life and death, reason and madness." " God forgets 
not his own purposes, though he executes them in his 

peach-trees, not yet planted. Dr. Chalmers halted, and looking stead- 
fastly at the wall, exclaimed most earnestly, " What foliage ! what 
foliage! " The boys looked at one another, and said nothing; but on 
getting home, expressed their astonishment at this very puzzling phe- 
nomenon. What a difference! leaves and parallelograms; a forest 
and a brick wall! 



378 DR. CHALMERS. 

own way, and maintains his own pace, which he has- 
tens not and shortens not to meet our impatience." " I 
find it easier to apprehend the greatness of The Deity 
than any of his moral perfections, or his sacredness ; " 
and this — 

" One cannot but feel an interest in Ishmael, figuring him to be a 
noble of nature — one of those heroes of the wilderness who lived on 
the produce of his bow, and whose spirit was nursed and exercised 
among the wild adventures of the life he led. And it does soften our 
conception of him whose hand was against every man, and every 
man's hand against him, when we read of his mother's influence over 
him, in the deference of Ishmael to whom we read another example 
of the respect yielded to females even in that so-called barbarous 
period of the world. There was a civilization, the immediate effect 
of religion, in these days, from which men fell away as the world 
grew older." 

That he had a keen relish for material and moral 
beauty and grandeur we all know ; what follows shows 
that he had also the true ear for beautiful words, as at 
once pleasant to the ear and . suggestive of some higher 
feelings : — "I have often felt, in reading Milton and 
Thomson, a strong poetical effect in the bare enumera- 
tion of different countries, and this strongly enhanced by 
the statement of some common and prevailing emotion, 
which passed from one to another." This is set forth 
with great beauty and power in verses 14th and 15th of 
Exodus xv., — " The people shall hear and be afraid — 
sorrow shall take hold on the inhabitants of Palestina. 
Then the dukes of Edom shall be amazed — the mighty 
men of Moab, trembling shall take hold of them — the 
inhabitants of Canaan shall melt away." Any one who 
has a tolerable ear and any sensibility, must remember 
the sensation of delight in the mere sound — like the 
colors of a butterfly's wing, or the shapeless glories of 



DR. CHALMERS. 379 

evening clouds, to the eye — in reading aloud such pas- 
sages as these : " Heshbon shall cry and Elealeh — their 
voice shall be heard to Jabez — for by the way of Luhith 
with weeping shall they go it up — for in the way of 
Horonaim they shall raise a cry. God came from 
Teman, the Holy One from Mount Paran. Is not Calno 
as Carchemish ? is not Hamath as Arpad ? is not Sa- 
maria as Damascus ? He is gone to Aiath, he is passed 
to Migron ; at Michmash he hath laid up his carriages : 
Ramath is afraid ; Gibeah of Saul is fled — Lift up thy 
voice, daughter of Gallim : cause it to be heard unto 
Laish, poor Anathoth. Madmenah is removed ; the 
inhabitants of Gebim gather themselves to flee. The 
fields of Heshbon languish — the vine of Sibmah — I 
will water thee with my tears, O Heshbon and Elealeh." 
Any one may prove to himself that much of the effect 
and beauty of these passages depends on these names ; 
put others in their room, and try them. 

We remember well our first hearing Dr. Chalmers. 
We were in a moorland district in Tweeddale, rejoicing 
in the country, after nine months of the High School. 
We heard that the famous preacher was to be at a neigh- 
boring parish church, and oiF we set, a cartful of irre- 
pressible youngsters. " Calm was all nature as a resting 
wheel." The crows, instead of making wing, were im- 
pudent and sat still; the cart-horses were standing, know- 
ing the day, at the field-gates, gossiping and gazing, idle 
and happy ; the moor was stretching away in the pale 
sunlight — vast, dim, melancholy, like a sea ; every- 
where were to be seen the gathering people, " sprink- 
lings of blithe company ; " the country-side seemed 
moving to one centre. As we entered the kirk we 
saw a notorious character, a drover, who had much of 



380 DR. CHALMERS. 

the brutal look of what he worked in, with the knowing 
eye of a man of the city, a sort of big Peter Bell — 

" He had a hardness in his eye, 
He had a hardness in his cheek." 

He was our terror, and we not only wondered, but were 
afraid when we saw him going in. The kirk was full as 
it could hold. How different in looks to a brisk town 
congregation ! There was a fine leisureliness and vague 
stare ; all the dignity and vacancy of animals ; eyebrows 
raised and mouths open, as is the habit with those who 
speak little and look much, and at far-off objects. The 
minister comes in, homely in his dress and gait, but hav- 
ing a great look about him, like a mountain among hills. 
The High School boys thought him like a "big one of 
ourselves," he looks vaguely round upon his audience, as 
if he saw in it one great object, not many. We shall 
never forget his smile ! its general benignity ; — how he 
let the light of his countenance fall on us ! He read a 
few verses quietly ; then prayed briefly, solemnly, with 
his eyes wide open all the time, but not seeing. Then 
he gave out his text ; we forget it, but its subject was, 
"Death reigns." He stated slowly, calmly, the simple 
meaning of the words ; what death was, and how and 
why it reigned ; then suddenly he started, and looked 
like a man who had seen some great sight, and was 
breathless to declare it ; he told us how death reigned — 
everywhere, at all times, in all places ; how we all knew 
it, how we would yet know more of it. The drover, 
who had sat down in the table-seat opposite, was gazing 
up in a state of stupid excitement ; he seemed restless, 
but never kept his eye from the speaker. The tide set 
in — everything added to its power, deep called to deep, 



DR. CHALMERS. 381 

imagery and illustration poured in ; and every now and 
then the theme, — the simple, terrible statement, was 
repeated in some lucid interval. After overwhelming 
us with proofs of the reign of Death, and transferring 
to us his intense urgency and emotion ; and after shriek- 
ing, as if in despair, these words, " Death is a tremen- 
dous necessity," — he suddenly looked beyond us as if 
into some distant region, and cried out, " Behold a 
mightier ! — who is this ? He cometh from Edom, 
with dyed garments from Bozrah, glorious in his ap- 
parel, speaking in righteousness, travelling in the great- 
ness of his strength, mighty to save." Then, in a few 
plain sentences, he stated the truth as to sin entering, 
and death by sin, and death passing upon all. Then 
he took fire once more, and enforced, with redoubled 
energy and richness, the freeness, the simplicity, the 
security, the sufficiency of the great method of justifi- 
cation. How astonished and impressed we all were ! 
He was at the full thunder of his power ; the whole 
man was in an agony of earnestness. The drover was 
weeping like a child, the tears running down his ruddy, 
coarse cheeks — his face opened out and smoothed like 
an infant's ; his whole body stirred with emotion. We 
all had insensibly been drawn out of our seats, and were 
converging towards the wonderful speaker. And when 
he sat down, after warning each one of us to remember 
who it was, and what it was, that followed death on his 
pale horse, 1 and how alone we could escape — we all 
sunk back into our seats. How beautiful to our eyes 
did the thunderer look — exhausted — but sweet and 
pure ! How he poured out his soul before his God in 

1 " And I looked, and behold, a pale horse ; and his name that sat on 
him was Death, and Hell followed with him." — Rev. vi. 8. 



382 DR. CHALMERS. 

giving thanks for sending the Abolisher of Death ! 
Then, a short psalm, and all was ended. 

We went home quieter than we came ; we did not 
recount the foals with their long legs, and roguish eyes, 
and their sedate mothers ; we did not speculate upon 
whose dog that was, and whether that was a crow or 
a man in the dim moor, — we thought of other things. 
That voice, that face ; those great, simple, living thoughts ; 
those floods of resistless eloquence ; that piercing, shatter- 
ing voice, — " that tremendous necessity." 

Were we desirous of giving to one who had never 
seen or heard Dr. Chalmers an idea of what manner 
of man he was — what he was as a whole, in the full 
round of his notions, tastes, affections, and powers — 
we would put this book into their hands, and ask them 
to read it slowly, bit by bit, as he wrote it. In it he 
puts down simply, and at once, what passes through his 
mind as he reads ; there is no making of himself feel 
and think — no getting into a frame of mind ; he was 
not given to frames of mind ; he preferred states to 
forms — substances to circumstances. There is something 
of everything in it — his relish for abstract thought — 
his love of taking soundings in deep places and finding 
no bottom — his knack of starting subtle questions, which 
he did not care to run to earth — his penetrating, regu- 
lating godliness — his delight in nature — his turn for 
politics, general, economical, and ecclesiastical — his 
picturesque eye — his humanity — his courtesy — his 
warm-heartedness — his impetuosity — his sympathy with 
all the wants, pleasures, and sorrows of his kind — his 
delight in the law of God, and his simple, devout, manly 
treatment of it — his acknowledgment of difficulties — 



DR. CHALMERS. 383 

his turn for the sciences of quantity and number, and in- 
deed for natural science and art generally — his shrewd- 
ness — his worldly wisdom — his genius ; all these come 
out — you gather them like fruit, here a little, and there 
a little. He goes over the Bible, not as a philosopher, 
or a theologian, or a historian, or a geologist, or a jurist, 
or a naturalist, or a statist, or a politician — picking out 
all that he wants, and a great deal more than he has any 
business with, and leaving everything else as barren to 
his reader as it has been to himself; but he looks abroad 
upon his Father's word — as he used so pleasantly to do 
on his world — as a man, and as a Christian ; he submits 
himself to its influences, and lets his mind go out fully and 
naturally in its utterances. It is this which gives to this 
work all the charm of multitude in unity, of variety in 
harmony ; and that sort of unexpectedness and ease of 
movement which we see everywhere in nature and in 
natural men. 

Our readers will find in these delightful Bible Read- 
ings not a museum of antiquities, and curiosities, and 
laborious trifles ; nor of scientific specimens, analyzed 
to the last degree, all standing in order, labelled and 
useless. They will not find in it an armory of weapons 
for fighting with and destroying their neighbors. They 
will get less of the physic of controversy than of the diet 
of holy living. They will find much of what Lord Bacon 
desired, when he said, " We want short, sound, and judi- 
cious notes upon Scripture, without running into com- 
monplaces, pursuing controversies, or reducing those 
notes to artificial method, but leaving them quite loose 
and native. For certainly, as those wines which flow 
from the first treading of the grape are sweeter and bet- 
ter than those forced out by the press, which gives them 



384 DR. CHALMERS. 

the roughness of the husk and the stone, so are those 
doctrines best and sweetest which flow from a gentle 
crush of the Scriptures, and are not wrung into contro- 
versies and commonplaces." They will find it as a large 
pleasant garden ; no great system ; not trim, but beauti- 
ful, and in which there are things pleasant to the eye as 
well as good for food — flowers and fruits, and a few 
good, esculent, wholesome roots. There are Honesty, 
Thrift, Eye-bright (Euphrasy that cleanses the sight), 
Heart's-ease. The good seed in abundance, and the 
strange mystical Passion-flower ; and in the midst, and 
seen everywhere, if we but look for it, the Tree of Life, 
with its twelve manner of fruits — the very leaves of 
which are for the healing of the nations. And, per- 
chance, when they take their walk through it at even- 
ing time, or at " the sweet hour of prime," they may see 
a happy, wise, beaming old man at his work there — 
they may hear his well-known voice ; and if they have 
their spiritual senses exercised as they ought, they will 
not fail to see by his side, " one like unto the Son of 
Man." 



DE. GEORGE WILSON. 



25 




DR. GEORGE WILSON. 



i^MONG the many students at our University 
Jij who some two-and-twenty years ago started 
%A on the great race, in the full flush of youth 
and health, and with that strong hunger for 
knowledge which only the young, or those who keep 
themselves so, ever know, there were three lads — Ed- 
ward Forbes, Samuel Brown, and George Wilson — who 
soon moved on to the front and took the lead. They are 
now all three in their graves. 

No three minds could well have been more diverse in 
constitution or bias ; each was typical of a generic differ- 
ence from the others. What they cordially agreed in, 
was their hunting in the same field and for the same 
game. The truth about this visible world, and all that 
it contains, was their quarry. This one thing they set 
themselves to do, but each had his own special gift, and 
took his own road — each had his own special choice of 
instruments and means. Any one man combining their 
essential powers, would have been the epitome of a 
natural philosopher, in the wide sense of the man who 
would master the philosophy of nature. 

Edward Forbes, who bulks largest at present, and 
deservedly, for largeness was of his essence, was the 
observer proper. He saw everything under the broad 



388 DR. GEORGE WILSON. 

and searching light of day, white and uncolored, and 
with an unimpassioned eye. What he was after were 
the real appearances of things ; phenomena as such ; all 
that seems to be. His was the search after what is, over 
the great field of the world. He was in the best sense 
a natural historian, an observer and recorder of what is 
seen and of what goes on, and not less of what has been 
seen and what has gone on, in this wonderful historic 
earth of ours, with all its fulness. He was keen, exact, 
capacious, — tranquil and steady in his gaze as Nature 
herself. He was, thus far, kindred to Aristotle, to Pliny, 
Linnaeus, Cuvier, and Humboldt, though the great Ger- 
man, and the greater Stagirite, had higher and deeper 
spiritual insights than Edward Forbes ever gave signs of. 
It is worth remembering that Dr. George Wilson was 
up to his death engaged in preparing his Memoir and 
Remains for the press. Who will now take up the tale ? 
Samuel Brown was, so to speak, at the opposite pole — 
rapid, impatient, fearless, full of passion and imaginative 
power — desiring to divine the essences rather than the 
appearances of things — in search of the what chiefly in 
order to question it, make it give up at whatever cost the 
secret of its why ; his fiery, projective, subtile spirit, could 
not linger in the outer fields of mere observation, though 
he had a quite rare faculty for seeing as well as for look- 
ing, which latter act, however, he greatly preferred ; but 
he pushed into the heart and inner life of every question, 
eager to evoke from it the very secret of itself. Forbes, 
as we have said, wandered at will, and with a settled 
purpose and a fine hunting scent, at his leisure, and free 
and almost indifferent, over the ample fields — happy and 
joyous and full of work — unencumbered with theory 
or with wings, for he cared not to fly. Samuel Brown, 



DR. GEORGE WILSON. 389 

whose wings were perhaps sometimes too much for him, 
more ambitious, more of a solitary turn, was forever climb- 
ing the Mount Sinais and Pisgahs of science, to speak 
with Him whose haunt they were, — climbing there all 
alone and in the dark, and with much peril, if haply he 
might descry the break of day and the promised land ; 
or, to vary the figure, diving into deep and not undan- 
gerous wells, that he might the better see the stars at 
noon, and possibly find Her who is said to lurk there. 
He had more of Plato, though he wanted the symmetry 
and persistent grandeur of the son of Ariston. He was, 
perhaps, liker his own favorite Kepler ; such a man in a 
word as we have not seen since Sir Humphry Davy, 
whom in many things he curiously resembled, and not 
the least is this, that the prose of each was more poetical 
than the verse. 

His fate has been a mournful and a strange one, but 
he knew it, and encountered it with a full knowledge of 
what it entailed. He perilled everything on his theory ; 
and if this hypothesis — it may be somewhat prematurely 
uttered to the world, and the full working out of which, 
by rigid scientific realization, was denied him by years 
of intense and incapacitating suffering, ending only in 
death, but the " relevancy " of which, to use the happy 
expression of Dr. Chalmers, we hold him to have proved, 
and in giving a glimpse of which, he showed, we firmly 
believe, what has been called that " instinctive grasp 
which the healthy imagination takes of possible truth," — ■ 
if his theory of the unity of matter, and the consequent 
transmutability of the now called elementary bodies, were 
substantiated in the lower but essential platform of actual 
experiment, this, along with his original doctrine of atoms 
and their forces, would change the entire face of chemis- 



390 DR. GEORGE WILSON. 

try, and make a Cosmos where now there is endless ag- 
glomeration and confusion, — would, in a word, do for the 
science of the molecular constitution of matter and its 
laws of action and reaction at insensible distances, what 
Newton's doctrine of gravitation has done for the celestial 
dynamics. For, let it be remembered, that the highest 
speculation and proof in this department — by such men 
as Dumas, Faraday, and William Thomson, and others — 
points in this direction; it does no more as yet perhaps 
than point, but some of us may live to see " resurgam " 
inscribed over Samuel Brown's untimely grave, and ap- 
plied with gratitude and honor to him whose eyes closed 
in darkness on the one great object of his life, and the 
hopes of whose " unaccomplished years " lie buried with 
him. 

Very different from either, though worthy of and 
capable of relishing much that was greatest and best in 
both, was he whom we all loved and mourn, and who, 
this day week, was carried by such a multitude of 
mourners to that grave, which to his eye had been open 
and ready for years. 

George Wilson was born in Edinburgh in 1818. His 
father, Mr. Archibald Wilson, was a wine merchant, and 
died sixteen years ago; his mother, Janet Aitken, still 
lives to mourn and to remember him, and she will agree 
with us that it is sweeter to remember him than to have 
converse with the rest. Any one who has had the priv- 
ilege to know him, and to enjoy his bright and rich and 
beautiful mind, will not need to go far to learn where it 
was that her son George got all of that genius and worth 
and delightfulness which is transmissible. She verifies 
what is so often and so truly said of the mothers of re- 
markable men. She was his first and best Alma Mater, 



DR. GEORGE WILSON. 391 

and in many senses his last, for her influence over him 
continued through life. George had a twin brother, who 
died in early life ; and we cannot help referring to his 
being one of twins, something of that wonderful power 
of attaching himself, and being personally loved, which 
was one of his strongest as it was one of his most win- 
ning powers. He was always fond of books, and of fun, 
the play of the mind. He left the High School at fif- 
teen and took to medicine ; but he soon singled out chem- 
istry, and, under the late Kenneth Kemp, and our own 
distinguished Professor of Materia Medica, himself a 
first-class chemist, he acquired such knowledge as to be- 
come assistant in the laboratory of Dr. Thomas Graham, 
now Master of the Mint, and then Professor of Chem- 
istry in University College. So he came out of a thor- 
ough and good school, and had the best of masters. 

He then took the degree of M. D., and became a Lec- 
turer in Chemistry, in what is now called the extra-aca- 
demical school of medicine, but which in our day was 
satisfied with the title of private lecturers. He became 
at once a great favorite, and, had his health and strength 
enabled him, he would have been long a most success- 
ful and popular teacher ; but general feeble health, and 
a disease in the ankle-joint requiring partial amputation 
of the foot, and recurrent attacks of a serious kind in his 
lungs, made his life of public teaching one long and sad 
trial. How nobly, how sweetly, how cheerily he bore 
all these long baffling years ; how his bright, active, ar- 
dent, unsparing soul lorded it over his frail but willing 
body, making it do more than seemed possible, and as 
it were by sheer force of will ordering it to live longer 
than was in it to do, those who lived with him and wit- 
nessed this triumph of spirit over matter, will not soon 



392 DR. GEORGE WILSON. 

forget. It was a lesson to every one of what true good- 
ness of nature, elevated and cheered by the highest* and 
happiest of all motives, can make a man endure, achieve, 
and enjoy. 

As is well known, Dr. Wilson was appointed in 1855 
to the newly-constituted Professorship of Technology, 
and to the Curatorship of the Industrial Museum. The 
expenditure of thought, of ingenuity, of research, and 
management — the expenditure, in a word, of himself — 
involved in originating and giving form of purpose to a 
scheme so new and so undefined, and, in our view, so 
undefinable, must, we fear, have shortened his life, and 
withdrawn his precious and quite singular powers of 
illustrating and adorning, and, in the highest sense, 
sanctifying and blessing science, from this which seemed 
always to us his proper sphere. Indeed, in the opinion 
of some good judges, the institution of such a chair at 
all, and especially in connection with a University such 
as ours, and the attaching to it the conduct of a great 
Museum of the Industrial Arts, was somewhat hastily 
gone into, and might have with advantage waited for 
and obtained a little more consideration and forethought. 
Be this as it may, Dr. Wilson did his duty with his 
whole heart and soul — making a class, which was al- 
ways increasing, and which was at its largest at his 
death. 

We have left ourselves no space to speak of Dr. 
Wilson as an author, as an academic and popular lec- 
turer, as a member of learned societies, as a man of 
exquisite literary powers and fancy, and as a citizen of 
remarkable public acceptation. This must come from 
some more careful, and fuller, and more leisurely rec- 
ord of his genius and worth. What he was as a friend 



DR. GEORGE WILSON". 393 

it is not for us to say ; we only know that when we leave 
this world we would desire no better memorial than to 
be remembered by many as George Wilson now is, and 
always will be. His Life of Cavendish is admirable as 
a biography, full of life, of picturesque touches, and of 
realization of the man and of his times, and is, more- 
over, thoroughly scientific, containing, among other dis- 
cussions, by far the best account of the great water con- 
troversy from the Cavendish point of view. His Life 
of John Reid is a vivid and memorable presentation to 
the world of the true lineaments, manner of life, and 
inmost thought and heroic sufferings, as well as of the 
noble scientific achievements of that strong, truthful, 
courageous, and altogether admirable man, and true 
discoverer — a genuine follower of John Hunter. 

The Five Gateways of Knowledge is a prose poem, a 
hymn of the finest utterance and fancy — the white light 
of science diffracted through the crystalline prism of his 
mind into the colored glories of the spectrum ; truth 
dressed in the iridescent hues of the rainbow, and not 
the less but all the more true. His other papers in the 
British Quarterly, the North British Review, and his 
last gem on " Paper, Pens, and Ink," in his valued and 
generous friend Macmillan's first number of his Maga- 
zine, are all astonishing proofs of the brightness, accu- 
racy, vivacity, unweariedness of his mind, and the end- 
less sympathy and affectionate play of his affections with 
the full round of scientific truth. His essay on " Color 
Blindness " is, we believe, as perfect a monogram as 
exists, and will remain likely untouched and unaclded 
to, factum ad unguem. As may be seen from these 
remarks, we regard him not so much as, like Edward 
Forbes, a great observer and quiet generalize^ or, like 



394 DR. GEORGE WILSON. 

Samuel Brown, a discoverer and philosopher properly 
so called — though, as we have said, he had enough of 
these two men's prime qualities to understand and relish 
and admire them. His great quality lay in making 
men love ascertained and recorded truth, scientific truth 
especially ; he made his reader and hearer enjoy fads. 
He illuminated the Book of Nature as they did the 
missals of old. His nature was so thoroughly compos- 
ite, so in full harmony with itself, that no one faculty 
could or cared to act without calling in all the others 
to join in full chorus. To take an illustration from his 
own science, his faculties interpenetrated and interfused 
themselves into each other, as the gases do, by a law 
of their nature. Thus it was that everybody understood 
and liked and was impressed by him ; he touched him 
at every point. Knowledge was to him no barren, cold 
essence ; it was alive and flushed with the colors of the 
earth and sky, and all over with light and stars. His 
flowers — and his mind was full of flowers — were from 
seeds, and were sown by himself. They were neither 
taken from other gardens and stuck in rootless, as chil- 
dren do, much less were they of the nature of gumflow- 
ers, made with hands, wretched and dry and scentless. 

Truth of science was to him a body, full of loveliness, 
perfection, and strength, in which dwelt the unspeakable 
Eternal. This, which was the dominant idea of his 
mind — the. goodliness, and not less the godliness of all 
science — made his whole life, his every action, every 
letter he wrote, every lecture he delivered, his last ex- 
piring breath, instinct with the one constant idea that all 
truth, all goodness, all science, all beauty, all gladness are 
but the expression of the mind and will and heart of the 
Great Supreme. And this, in his case, was not mysticism, 



DR. GEORGE WILSON. 395 

neither was it merely a belief in revealed religion, though 
no man cherished and believed in his Bible more firmly 
and cordially than he; it was the assured belief, on 
purely scientific grounds, that God is indeed and in very 
truth all in all ; that, to use the sublime adaptation by 
poor crazy Smart, the whole creation, visible and invisi- 
ble, spiritual and material, everything that has being, 
is — to those who have ears to hear — forever declaring 
" Thou Art" before the throne of the Great I Am. 

To George Wilson, to all such men — and this is the 
great lesson of his life — the heavens are forever telling 
His glory, the firmament is forever showing forth His 
handiwork ; day unto day, every day, is forever uttering 
speech, and night unto night is showing knowledge con- 
cerning Him. When he considered these heavens, as 
lie lay awake weary and in pain, they were to him the 
work of His fingers. The moon, walking in brightness, 
and lying in white glory on his bed — the stars — were 
by Him ordained. He was a singularly happy, and 
happy-making man. No one since his boyhood could 
have suffered more from pain, and languor, and the 
misery of an unable body. Yet he was not only cheer- 
ful, he was gay, full of all sorts of fun — genuine fun — 
and his jokes and queer turns of thought and word were 
often worthy of Cowper or Charles Lamb. We wish 
we had them collected. Being, from his state of health 
and his knowledge of medicine, necessarily " mindful of 
death," having the possibility of his dying any day or any 
hour, always before him, and " that undiscovered coun- 
try " lying full in his view, he must — taking, as he did, 
the right notion of the nature of things — have had a 
peculiar intensity of pleasure in the every-day beauties 
of the world. 



396 DR. GEORGE WILSON. 

" The common sun, the air, the skies, 
To him were opening Paradise." 

They were to him all the more exquisite, all the more 
altogether lovely, these Pentlands, and well-known rides 
and places ; these rural solitudes and pleasant villages and 
farms, and the countenances of his friends, and the clear, 
pure, radiant face of science and of nature, were to him 
all the more to be desired and blessed and thankful for, 
that he knew the pallid king at any time might give that 
not unexpected knock, and summon him away. 



ST. PAUL'S THORN IN THE FLESH. 
WHAT WAS IT? 



ST. PAUL'S THORN IN THE FLESH : WHAT 

WAS IT? 



F the 15th verse of the fourth chapter of the 
Epistle to the Galatians, instead of being 
{C-^ taken in a figurative sense, as it generally 
vL^-^i ^ has been, be understood literally, it will be 
found to furnish the means of determining, with a toler- 
ably near approach to certainty, the particular nature of 
the disease under which St. Paul is supposed to have 
labored, and which he elsewhere speaks of as the " Thorn 
in his flesh." And that the literal interpretation is the 
true one, may, I think, be shown, partly from the general 
scope of the paragraph to which the loth verse belongs ; 
partly from some peculiarities of expression in it, which 
could only have been used under an intention that the 
verse in question should be taken literally ; and partly 
also from the fact that there are statements and allusions 
elsewhere in the New Testament, which assert or imply, 
that St. Paul really was affected in the manner here sup- 
posed to be indicated. 

" Brethren, I beseech you" says the Apostle, " be as I 
am ; for I am as ye are : ye have not injured me at all. 
Ye know how through infirmity of the flesh I preached the 
gospel unto you at the first And my temptation (trial) 
which was in my flesh ye despised not, nor rejected; but 
received me as an angel of God, even as Christ Jesus. 



400 ST. PAUL'S THORN IN THE FLESH: 

Where is then the blessedness ye spake of? for I bear you 
record, that, if it had been possible, ye would have plucked 
out your own eyes, and have given them to me." 

The last words of this passage, " Ye would have 
plucked out your own eyes, and have given them to 
me," have usually been taken in a hyperbolical or pro- 
verbial sense, as if a merely general meaning was con- 
veyed, amounting simply to — " There was no sacrifice, 
however great, which ye would not have made for me." 
But it is plainly open to inquiry, whether the sense is not 
of a more special kind ; whether (viz.) St. Paul does not 
here, as in the preceding verses, intend to remind the 
Galatians of pure matter of fact — to recall to them, not 
in mere general terms, the depth and warmth of their feel- 
ings and professions of regard for him, but to repeat to 
them perhaps the very words they had used, and to re- 
vive in their memories the actual and express import of 
their desires and anxieties. If this be the case, if it 
really was a common and habitual thing with them to 
express a wish that it were possible for them to pluck out 
their own eyes, and to transfer them to the apostle, the 
only way of reasonably accounting for so strange and 
outre a proceeding, is to suppose that St. Paul actually 
labored either under entire deprivation of vision, or 
under some severely painful and vexatious disease of 
the eyes : The meaning being, that so keenly did the 
Galatians sympathize with the apostle in his affliction, 
that they would willingly have become his substitutes 
by taking all his suffering upon themselves, if only it 
were possible, by doing so to relieve him. 

That there is at least no prima facie objection to this 
explanation of the words, will, I think, be readily enough 
admitted. It is perfectly simple and unforced, and it 



WHAT WAS IT? 401 

conveys a lively and touching representation of the feel- 
ings which would naturally spring up in the minds of a 
grateful and warm-hearted people, to their great benefactor 
and friend, who, amidst disease, and pain, and weakness, 
had made the greatest and most unwearying exertions to 
communicate to them the invaluable truths of Christianity. 
But, in addition to this, it will be found, I think, that 
under the literal interpretation of the 15th verse, a pe- 
culiar point and force belongs to the apostle's appeal, and 
a closely connected and harmonious meaning is imparted 
to the whole paragraph, all of which, it seems to me, are lost 
if the figurative explanation is adhered to. In the previous 
part of the chapter, St. Paul had been arguing against 
the foolish predilection which the Galatians had taken 
up for forms and formalisms and ceremonial observances, 
and strongly exhorting them to abandon this pernicious 
and unchristian propensity. And now, in the paragraph 
quoted, he takes up new ground, and appeals to them by 
the memory of their old affection for him, to listen to his 
arguments and entreaties, and to be of one mind with 
him. The general meaning of what he says is plain 
enough, but there are difficulties of detail, both in par- 
ticular expressions, and in the train of thought. The 
words, for example, " Be as I am, for I am as ye are," 
at once strike the ear as a peculiar and unusual style to 
adopt in an invitation to unity of thought and feeling. 
But if the last clause of the 15th verse be taken liter- 
ally, I think it will appear that this expression has a 
special fitness and propriety. The words, " for I am as 
ye are," imply a reference, I imagine, to his being, in 
respect of his bodily affliction, not as they were ; and 
what follows is intended to remind them how anxious 
they were, when their love to him was fresh, to be " as 

26 



402 ST. PAUL'S THORN IN THE FLESH: 

he was," even although it would have been necessary to 
accept bodily pain and mutilation to attain that object. 
If I am correct in thinking the first clause of the 12th 
verse, and the last of the 15th, to be thus closely related 
and corresponsive, it will be seen that they mutually 
explain each other ; and the apostle's argument, as I 
understand it, may then be thus stated : — If you were 
so willing and eager, when I was with you, even at the 
cost of plucking out your eyes, to " be as I am," surely 
you will hardly refuse me the same thing now in this 
other matter, wherein there is no such difference between 
us as to raise any impediment in the way of your com- 
pliance, where no such sacrifice as ye were formerly 
ready to make is required of you, and where all that is 
asked from you is to give up your false opinions and evil 
practices, and simply " be as I am " in believing and 
obeying the truth revealed. 

In another respect, the ordinary explanation involves, 
I think, an unnatural rupture of the continuity of 
thought, which is completely avoided by the literal in- 
terpretation of the passage. In the 13th verse, we find 
the apostle introducing, in a somewhat formal and special 
manner, the subject of his bodily affliction. " Ye know," 
he says, " how through infirmity of the flesh I preached 
the gospel to you at the first." And it cannot but strike 
the reader as strange that, after this, all he should have 
to say about the matter, is that the Galatians " despised 
not nor rejected it." The very vagueness, and merely 
negative character of this expression, excites a sort of 
instinctive expectation that he will forthwith proceed to 
state something more positive and specific. But instead 
of this we are taught by the common explanation, to 
suppose that an abrupt transition is at once made from 



WHAT WAS IT? 403 

the subject of his " temptation " altogether ; the statement 
about the attachment of the Galatians, instead of becom- 
ing more distinct and special, as we naturally expect it 
to do, suddenly merges into the widest possible general- 
ity ; and their affection, instead of being described by 
any further reference to the facts of its manifestation, is 
now represented to us under a strong (it is true) but 
rather fantastic figure, which leaves an impression of its 
character and aspect just as undecided and imperfect as 
before. 

But a closer examination of the words at once throws 
doubt on this conception of their meaning. In the 13th 
and 14th verses, the associated ideas are, the apostle's 
disease or affliction, and the affectionate concern of the 
Galatians with reference to it. In the loth verse, the 
reference to the Galatians' display of affection is still 
continued, and now the idea connected with it is, that 
of their giving him their plucked-out eyes. But this is 
not necessarily a change of association, for, as already 
intimated, their plucking out their eyes and giving them 
to the apostle, naturally and readily suggests the thought 
that their design was, " if it had been possible," to sup- 
ply them to him as substitutes for his own, under the 
assumption of the latter being diseased or defective. If 
this be the reference, then the missing idea reappears, 
the lost association is recovered ; bodily affliction in the 
apostle, aud the affection of the Galatians towards him, 
are still the connected thoughts, the only change being 
just what might naturally be expected to take place as 
the discourse proceeded, viz.: — that the ideas are more 
distinctly developed, and that what was previously al- 
luded to in general terms, is now, not indeed directly 
stated, but specifically indicated and implied. The 



404 ST. PAUL'S THORN EST THE FLESH: 

" temptation " in the one verse, and the disease hinted 
by implication in the form assumed by the passionate 
sympathy of the Galatians, are therefore identified ; and 
thus, the whole paragraph, from the 12th to the 15th 
verse, instead of presenting an agglomeration of abrupt 
transitions and disconnected thoughts, evolves a close, 
natural, and continuous meaning throughout. 

Something more, however, is required than merely to 
show that the interpretation which I propose exhibits a 
better arrangement and connection of the thoughts. The 
apostle may have written in haste, and that explanation 
of his meaning which attributes to him imperfect con- 
nectedness, may after all be the correct one. I shall 
therefore proceed to inquire whether some further light 
may not be thrown upon the subject, by a more minute 
investigation than I have yet attempted, of particular 
words and turns of expression in the passage. 

The phrase, " I bear you record," could only have 
been used with propriety in reference to a positive fact; 
something that the apostle had actually witnessed. He 
could not have employed this language in announcing a 
mere inference (as the common interpretation would 
make it) from the conduct of the Galatians towards him, 
as to the strength and extent of their regard; for a man's 
testimony can only bear reference to facts which have 
actually come under his observation. The apostle's lan- 
guage, let it be observed, is not the declaration of a 
belief that the Galatians would have plucked out their 
own eyes in his behalf, if circumstances had arisen to 
make such a sacrifice necessary ; it is the announcement * 
of a testimony ({laprvpu)), on the assumption that those 
circumstances had actually arisen. And the testimony 
is not to the effect that the Galatians entertained strong 



WHAT WAS IT? 405 

affection to him, and as a consequence of that affection, 
that he is assured they would have plucked out their 
eyes for him (for these must have been the terms of 
his declaration, upon the ordinary understanding of the 
passage) ; but it is direct to the point, that if it had only 
been possible, " they would have plucked out their own 
eyes, and have given them to him. ,, Such language, it 
appears to me, would be absurd, unless we are to under- 
stand by it, that the Galatians had actually expressed a 
wish, and demonstrated a desire to perform the very act 
which the apostle speaks of. And if so, I think it is 
obviously necessary to infer that some circumstance must 
have existed to give occasion to a wish of so peculiar a 
kind, in the minds of those who were attached to the 
apostle's person ; and the only circumstance which I can 
conceive of as calculated to excite such a wish, is St. 
Paul's suffering under some painful affection of the 
eyes. 

The expression, " if it had been possible," has also, 
I think, a peculiar significance. If the sentence in the 
15th verse, beginning, "I bear you record," &c, is 
thoughtfully considered, it will be seen that three sup- 
positions may be made as to the apostle's meaning and 
reference : 1st, The language may be understood (as has 
usually been done) in a figurative or proverbial sense, 
and as containing no allusion to any really existing cir- 
cumstances ; 2d, It may be taken literally, but with 
reference rather to what might happen than to circum- 
stances actually existing ; as if the writer had said, " If 
I were to lose my eyes, I bear you record that you would 
willingly have plucked out yours to supply their place ; " 
or, 3d, The words may be understood as giving a plain 
matter-of-fact representation of what the Galatians really 



406 ST. PAUL'S THORN IN THE FLESH: 

thought and felt in reference to the apostle's bodily af- 
fliction. Now, I think it may be made out quite distinctly 
that the words " if it had been possible/' could only have 
been used under the last of these hypotheses ; for in no 
other case would the contingency of possibility have pre- 
sented itself to the writer's mind. If, for example, we 
are to understand the language as literal, but with refer- 
ence to the future or conceivable, rather than the present 
or actual, the expression would obviously have been, — 
"I bear you record that if it had been necessary'' or, 
" if such a thing had been required of you for my bene- 
fit, ye would have plucked out," &C. 1 If, on the other 
hand, we suppose the language to be figurative or pro- 
verbial, no contingency would have been mentioned at 
all, for it is characteristic of such language that it is 
always absolute and unconditional. For example, in the 
expressions, " If thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, 
and cast it from thee ; " " If thy right eye offend thee, 
pluck it out, and cast it from thee ; " every one at once 
recognizes the purely proverbial or figurative character 
of the language, and this simply because its form is ab- 
solute and unconditioned. The moment you introduce 
anything like a condition, and make the removal of the 
sinning eye or the offending hand dependent upon some 
circumstance, you are compelled to understand the words 

1 This seems to have been the view taken by Calvin, but with 
that logical acuteness which was characteristic of him, he at the same 
time perceived that it was inaccordant with the expression, " if it 
had been possible." In his commentary upon the passage, there- 
fore, he substitutes "si opus sit" for the apostle's words; thus, of 
course, assuming that St. Paul had adopted an inapt phrase to ex- 
press his meaning. But I need scarcely say that such a mode of 
interpretation is altogether inadmissible, the only legitimate rule 
being to take the words of the text as they stand, and thence to 
infer the circumstances or conditions under which they were used. 



WHAT WAS IT? 407 

according to their strictly literal meaning. Thus, if our 
Lord, instead of saying what he did in this case, had 
used such an expression as this, — "If thy right hand 
offend thee, and if the tendency to offend be insuper- 
able, cut it off ; " or, " If thy right eye offend thee, and 
its extraction would not endanger life, pluck it out," it is 
clear that the expressions could only have been taken 
in their strictly literal sense. So, in the words under 
review, it is also obvious that the introduction of the 
" if it be possible " takes the phrase out of the class of 
figures or proverbs, and necessitates its interpretation in 
a close, literal, matter-of-fact manner. 

Perhaps a slight incident which lately occurred in my 
presence will better illustrate what I wish to convey than 
any elaborate exposition could do. One day, a poor 
simple-hearted married couple, from the country, called 
on a medical friend of mine, to consult him about a 
complaint in the eyes of the husband, which seemed to 
threaten him with total blindness. The wife entered at 
great length into all the symptoms of the complaint, 
and was extremely voluble in her expressions of sym- 
pathy and of anxiety that something should be done to 
remove the disease. It was difficult to repress a smile 
at the scene, and yet it was touching too ; and the doc- 
tor, looking in the old woman's honest affectionate face, 
quietly said, " I suppose you would give him one of 
your own eyes, if you could : " " That I would, sir," 
was the immediate answer. Now, it is clear that my 
friend's words could only have been used under the 
particular circumstances which called them forth. Had 
the affection of the old woman been exhibited upon some 
other occasion than her husband's threatened blindness, 
he might have said (though, of course, the allusion to 



408 ST. PAUL'S THORK IN THE FLESH: 

eyes at all would not very naturally or probably have 
suggested itself), " I suppose you would give him one 
of your own eyes if he required it" but he could never 
have used the words, " if you could" The application 
of this to the language used by St. Paul is sufficiently 
obvious. 

Another expression in this paragraph seems to me 
still further to discriminate the nature of the complaint 
under which St. Paul suffered. I mean the words, 
" and have given them to me." Admitting that the Ga- 
latians might, under other circumstances than diseased 
vision in the apostle, have thought of such a way of 
demonstrating their affection to him as plucking out their 
own eyes, I cannot imagine how the notion of " giving 
them to him " could ever have occurred to them, unless 
his organs of sight were in such a state of disease as 
in the natural association of ideas to give rise to this 
vain and fanciful wish. For the very fact of its being 
thus vain, fanciful, and far-fetched, makes it necessary 
to assume that there were some peculiar circumstances in 
the case to occasion a thought so odd and out of the 
way. If the language had really been what it has so 
generally been supposed to be — figurative or prover- 
bial — I can conceive the apostle putting it in this way, 
" Ye would have plucked out your own eyes for me" or, 
" to show the strength of your affection for me ; " but it 
seems to me that it is absurd and unmeaning to say, 
" and have given them to me" unless under the idea of 
such giving being of some service to the apostle, as a 
kindly fancy would naturally dwell upon the thought of 
its being, if St. Paul's own eyes were injured or de- 
stroyed. And, further, we are compelled, I think, to 
conclude that the idea of substitution is conveyed by 



WHAT WAS IT? 409 

the word " given," from this fact, that the clause, " if 
it had been possible," has actually no meaning at all, 
unless it is to be understood as referring to the sup- 
posed attempt of the apostle to make use of the Gala- 
tians' eyes. It is clear that the writer could not have 
used the words, " if it had been possible " in reference 
to the " plucking out," because there the obstacle of im- 
possibility did not present itself; there was nothing to 
hinder the Galatians from plucking out their eyes if 
they had been so disposed. Neither could the refer- 
ence have been to "giving" in the simple sense of that 
word ; if they could pluck out their eyes there was no 
impossibility in merely giving them to the apostle. The 
only thing about the possibility of which there could be 
any question was their being so given — so made over 
to him as to be of any service as substitutes for his 
own. 

One other expression in the paragraph still requires to 
be noticed, but I must defer alluding to it until I have 
referred to some other points which seem to me to have 
a bearing upon the question. In the mean time, having 
thus shown how exactly the whole of the language of 
this passage tallies with the idea of the apostle having 
been affected with some distressing complaint in his eyes, 
it is surely very remarkable to learn, from a totally dif- 
ferent source, that St. Paul actually had at one period of 
his life lost the power of vision. I allude, of course, to 
what is recorded, in the ninth chapter of Acts, of the 
strange occurrence which took place when he was on his 
way to Damascus. And although we are informed that 
he shortly afterwards recovered his sight, it is obvious 
that this is quite compatible with the existence of much 
remaining disease and imperfection of vision. Indeed, I 



410 ST. PAUL'S THORN IN THE FLESH: 

am not sure but his own language in giving an account 
of the extraordinary event actually favors the idea that 
the miraculous cure effected by Ananias went barely to 
the restoration of sight, and did not amount to a com- 
plete removal of the injury which his eyes had sustained. 
In his address to the Jews at Jerusalem, when he stood 
upon the stairs of the castle (Acts xxii. 13), all that he 
says is, "Ananias came unto me and stood and said unto 
me, Brother Saul, receive thy sight. And the same 
hour / looked up upon him" In Acts ix. 18, the words 
are, " Immediately there fell from his eyes as it had been 
scales, and he received sight forthwith." In neither pas- 
sage at least is there anything inconsistent with the idea 
that his eyes, though they had not lost the power of 
vision, may yet have been seriously and perhaps perma- 
nently injured. And although it is perhaps scarcely 
legitimate to bring it forward as an argument for the 
view which I have adopted, yet it is impossible to over- 
look the fact that a most important end was served by 
the apostle's eyes being permitted to retain the marks of 
disease and severe injury, for a standing proof was thus 
afforded to the Church and to the world that the extraor- 
dinary vision, so confirmatory of the truth of our holy 
religion, was not, as some might otherwise have been in- 
clined to think it, a vain fancy of the apostle's own mind. 
Often, no doubt, when St. Paul told of that remarkable 
meeting with the Lord Jesus, he was met by the reply, 
" ' Paul, thou art beside thyself ; ' delusion, a heated im- 
agination, has deceived and betrayed you." But he had 
only to point to his branded, half-quenched orbs, and to 
ask the objectors if mental hallucinations were accus- 
tomed to produce such effects on the bodily frame. To 
such a question there could obviously be no answer. 



WHAT WAS IT? 411 

And if the objectors were satisfied of the apostle's ve- 
racity in alleging the one thing to be the effect of the 
other, it was hardly possible for them to gainsay the 
claim of a Divine origin for Christianity. 

This hypothesis as to the cause and occasion of St. 
Paul's infirmity, receives from another part of Scripture, 
where allusion is made to it, a somewhat remarkable 
confirmation. In the 12th chapter of Second Corinthi- 
ans, it cannot, I think, after what I have just stated, 
but be regarded as very singular that the " thorn in 
the flesh " is mentioned in immediate connection with 
" visions and revelations of the Lord." The ordinary 
idea, indeed, has been that this connection is merely in- 
cidental ; but a little consideration, I think, will show 
that this cannot be the case. In the 7th verse he says, 
"And lest I should be exalted above measure through 
the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me 
a thorn in the flesh," &c. Now, I contend that unless 
there was some such intimate relation between the thorn 
in the flesh and the revelations in question, as that of 
the one being immediately occasioned by the other, the 
humbling effect here attributed to the bodily infirmity 
could not have been produced on the apostle's mind, be- 
cause the cause assigned would have been unsuitable and 
inadequate to such an effect. It is true that every afflic- 
tion, bodily or otherwise, has a tendency to produce a 
feeling of humiliation, but it does so only in so far as it 
cuts away the ground on which we are disposed to build 
up matter of pride or boasting. If a man is proud of 
his strength or personal beauty, it would humble him to 
lose a limb, or to have his features disfigured by loath- 
some disease. But these afflictions would not produce 
the same effect if they befell another person who valued 



412 ST. PAUL'S THORN IN THE FLESH: 

himself exclusively upon his learning and mental endow- 
ments. The pride of learning and of intellect would, in 
such a case, remain as strong as ever. Accordingly we 
find that deformed persons, so far from being distin- 
guished by the grace of humility, are very frequently 
rather remarkable for the opposite characteristics of 
vanity and self-conceit ; so natural is it for the mind to 
take refuge from what tends to produce a sense of degra- 
dation, in something that the humbling stroke does not 
directly smite. It does not, therefore, distinctly appear, 
in any explanation of St. Paul's affliction which would re- 
fer it to disease of an ordinary kind, how it should have 
had the effect which he attributes to it, — that of prevent- 
ing him from being unduly exalted by the abundance of 
the revelations made to him. But when it is pointed 
out that his affliction was the immediate consequence of 
his close intercourse with Deity, the relation of the two 
things assumes an entirely different aspect, and a suf- 
ficient cause of humiliation appears. For, if at any time 
the apostle was disposed to glorify himself on his superi- 
ority to his fellow-men, and on being the peculiar favorite 
and friend of God, his real insignificance, and the infinite 
distance that lay between him and the Divine Being, 
must have been sent home with irresistible power to his 
mind, by the recollection that the mere sight of that ter- 
rible majesty had struck him to the ground, and had left 
an ever-during brand of pain and disfigurement on his 
person. I shall just add, that in Second Corinthians 
xii. 7, the words, rrj virepfioXfi tojv (X7roKaXi;i//eW may with 
quite as much propriety be construed with iSoOrj jjlol 
ctk6Xo\1/ rrj crap/a, as with Iva jjlt] inrepaLpajfAOu ; the mean- 
ing being thus given, — " and that I might not be ex- 
alted, a thorn in the flesh [caused] by the exceeding 



WHAT WAS IT ? 413 

greatness (for this rather than ' abundance ' seems to me 
the proper translation of vTrepjBoXrj) of the revelations, 
was given me." 

If the account I have thus given of the connection be- 
tween St. Paul's " thorn in the flesh," and the visions or 
revelations with which he was favored, be the correct 
one, we are now furnished with the means of explaining 
a somewhat obscure expression in the 14th verse of the 
fourth chapter of Galatians, to which I promised to re- 
turn : " And my trial which was in my flesh, ye despised 
not, nor rejected" If we are compelled to abide by the 
belief, that St. Paul's " trial " was merely some bodily 
affliction of the ordinary kind, we can understand the 
meaning of his saying that the Galatians. did not "de- 
spise " it (although, by the way, it seems rather a micro- 
scopic basis on which to found a laudation of a body of 
Christian men and women, to say that they were so good 
as not to despise him on account of a natural bodily in- 
firmity), but it is impossible, on this assumption, to at- 
tach any consistent sense to the word "rejected." It 
has, therefore, been taken as simply synonymous with 
" despise," an interpretation which is objectionable, both 
because it is at variance with the well-ascertained mean- 
ing of the Greek word i^e-H-Tvo-arc (spit out, not spit at), 
and also because it involves the imputation of needless 
tautology to St. Paul's language, from which, almost 
more than from any other fault of style, the whole of his 
writings prove him to be singularly free. But if my ex- 
planation of the nature of the apostle's trial be the true 
one, every word of the sentence has a clear and intel- 
ligible meaning. St. Paul came among the Galatians 
proclaiming to them the glad truth, that Jesus Christ was 
risen from the dead. How did he know it ? Because 



414 ST. PAUL'S THORN IN THE FLESH: 

he himself had seen him alive after his passion, " when 
he came near to Damascus." Was he quite sure that 
the vision was not a dream, or a delusion ? He pointed 
to his eyes in proof that it was a great certainty, a ter- 
rible as well as joyous reality. And this evidence the 
Galatians " despised not, nor rejected." 

This explanation of the reference of " rejected," has 
also the advantage of removing a difficulty which has 
hitherto been felt in the translation of the preceding 
verse. It is there said, "Ye know how through in- 
firmity of the flesh I preached," &c. Now, it so hap- 
pens, that the Greek words St ao-Qevtiav, cannot, in ac- 
cordance with the common usage of the language, be 
translated "through" (in the sense of during) "infirm- 
ity." Had this been the meaning which the apostle in- 
tended to convey, he would have used the genitive St 
acr9 evetas. With the accusative, the reference of Sea is 
generally found to be to the instrument, ground, or cause 
of anything, and its meaning is — by, on account of, 
by means of, on the ground of, &C. 1 The literal and 
strictly correct translation of St. Paul's words, therefore, 
is : " By the infirmity of my flesh, I proclaimed to you 
the good news," i. e., I adduced the fact of my bodily 
affliction, as giving indisputable evidence of the truth 
which I told you about the resurrection and exaltation 
of Jesus Christ, and this evidence "ye despised not, nor 
rejected." Thus, not only a specific meaning is attached 
to the word " rejected," but a much more close, distinct, 
and consistent sense is given to the whole passage, than 
upon any other understanding of the reference it could 
possess. 

1 See Robinson's Lexicon to the New Testament, sub voce Sia. 



WHAT WAS IT ? 415 

There are one or two other passages in St. Paul's 
Epistles, in which reference, I think, is implied to this 
subject of his bodily affliction, and all of them seem to 
me to afford incidentally some confirmation of the par- 
ticular view of the matter which I have endeavored to 
establish. At the close of the Epistle to the Galatians 
(chap. vi. verse 11), we find him saying, "Ye see how 
large a letter I have written to you with my own hand." 
Now, the letter is not a very large one ; on the contrary, 
it is one of the shorter of the apostle's productions. And, 
then, why should he take credit for having written it 
with his own hand ? Under ordinary circumstances, it 
would scarcely occur to any one in the habit of writing 
at all, to speak of this as any remarkable achievement. 
But, if the Galatians knew him to be laboring under 
impaired vision, and perhaps severe pain in his eyes, 
the words are peculiarly significant, and could not fail 
to make a touching impression on the quick, impulsive 
temperament, so vividly alive to anything outward, of 
the Celtic tribe to which they were addressed. And 
thus too, we obtain an explanation of what would other- 
wise be rather unaccountable, how a man of St. Paul's 
active habits, and whom we have difficulty in conceiv- 
ing of as accustomed in anything to have recourse to 
superfluous ministrations, seems to have almost uni- 
formly employed an amanuensis in writing to the vari- 
ous churches. 1 

Again, at the very conclusion of the Epistle, we have 

1 It has been suggested to me that the state of St. Paul's eyesight 
might also furnish an explanation of his mistake in not recognizing 
the High Priest, which is recorded in Acts xxiii. 5, and about which 
some difficulty has been felt by commentators. One can picture the 
great apostle, who was a thorough gentleman, stretching forward, and 
shading his eyes, to see better, and saying, " Pardon me, I did not 
see it was the High Priest." " I wist not." 



416 ST. PAUL'S THORN IN THE FLESH: 

what I cannot help regarding as another allusion to his 
affliction : " From henceforth let no man trouble me ; 
for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus. 9 ' 
It has been customary to regard these words as refer- 
ring to the marks of scourging, stoning, &c, which had 
been imprinted on the apostle's body by the enemies of 
the gospel, in the course of the persecutions to which he 
had been subjected in consequence of his firm adherence 
to the faith. But though the fact of his having under- 
gone severe persecution was a strong proof of his sin- 
cerity, it was no proof at all of his bearing any authority 
over the Galatians. Yet this is what he must be un- 
derstood as asserting here. And I cannot help think- 
ing, that the words, "marks of the Lord Jesus," are 
chosen with a reference to that relationship which was 
established between St. Paul and his Master and Lord, 
on the occasion of that extraordinary meeting on the 
way to Damascus, for it was then he received his com- 
mission to bear Christ's name to the Gentiles. Sr/y/xara 
were the brands with which slaves were marked in order 
to prove their ownership. So, if I am right in my un- 
derstanding of the meaning of the word here, the apostle 
intends to intimate that the blasting effect produced on 
his eyes by the glory of that light, constituted the brand 
which attested his being the servant (SoOAos) of Jesus 
Christ, and of his being commissioned by him to com- 
municate to others the truth of the gospel. This gives 
a force and fulness of meaning which corresponds ex- 
actly with the peculiar energy of the expression, while, 
according to any ordinary explanation of the passage, 
it seems rather to be strong language used without any 
adequate occasion for it. 1 

1 It may be worth mentioning here, that an opinion prevails in the 



WHAT WAS IT? 417 

I think the circumstance of the expression, " marks of 
the Lord Jesus," occurring just where it does, at the 
close of the Epistle, is worthy of remark. From what 
he says at the 11th verse of the same chapter ( " Ye see 
how large a letter I have written to you with my own 
hand " ) it is obvious that, to whatever cause it is to be 
attributed, the act of writing was one of considerable 
effort to the apostle. His zeal, and anxiety, and Chris- 
tian affection, however, had borne him up, and carried 
him through with his task. But just as he was con- 
cluding, I imagine that he began to feel that the effort he 
had made was greater than his infirmity was well able 
to bear. If my idea as to the nature of that infirmity 
be correct, his weak, diseased eyes were burning and 
smarting more than ordinarily, from the unusual exer- 
tion that had been demanded from them ; and this, at 
once leading his mind to what had been the cause of 
that exertion, the misconduct of the Galatians and their 
teachers, naturally wrung from him an assertion of his 
authority, in the impetuous and reproachful, but at the 
same time deeply pathetic exclamation : " From hence- 
forth let no man trouble me, for I bear in my body the 

Roman Catholic Church, that persons who have been favored with 
Divine visions, or to whom God wishes to give a token of his peculiar 
love, are frequently marked by what are specifically called stigmas, 
I have not met with any account of the grounds on which this opin- 
ion is founded; but the stigmas are explained to be the marks of the 
Saviour's five wounds. It is very likely that the notion is nothing 
more than a fantastic and superstitious explanation of the passage in 
Galatians vi. 17. But it is not altogether impossible that it may be 
the faint and imperfect echo of some early tradition in the Church 
as to the physical effect produced upon St. Paul by Christ's miracu- 
lous appearance to him near Damascus. Whatever be its origin, the 
existence of such an opinion is not without a certain degree of curi- 
osity and interest. 

27 



418 ST. PAUL'S THORN IN THE FLESH. 

marks of the Lord Jesus." And so he concludes his 
Epistle. 

In pursuing the above inquiry, certain further conclu- 
sions, naturally flowing out of what I have attempted to 
establish, and yet involving results considerably remote 
from it, have presented themselves to my thoughts. I am 
inclined to regard them as calculated in some degree to 
simplify the mode of presenting the Christian scheme to 
the mind, and to impart to its claims upon the under- 
standing and belief more of logical directness, and less 
of the liability to evasion, than appear to me to char- 
acterize some of the more ordinary modes of its presen- 
tation. But I must leave the development of this, the 
most interesting, as I think, and important part of my 
subject, to some future opportunity, should it be granted 
me. 



THE BLACK DWARFS BONES. 



" If thou wert grim, 
Lame, ugly, crooked, swart, prodigious." 

King John. 



THE BLACK DWARF'S BONES. 




HESE gnarled, stunted, useless old bones, 
were all that David Ritchie, the original 
of the Black Dwarf, had for left femur and 
tibia, and we have merely to look at them 
and add poverty, to know the misery summed up in their 
possession. They seem to have been blighted and rick- 
ety. The thigh-bone is very short and slight, and singu- 
larly loose in texture ; the leg-bone is dwarfed, but dense 
and stout. They were given to me many years ago by 
the late Andrew Ballantyne, Esq. of Woodhouse (the 
Wudess, as they call it on Tweedside), and their genu- 
ineness is unquestionable. 

As anything must be interesting about one once so 
forlorn and miserable, and whom our great wizard has 
made immortal, I make no apology for printing the fol- 
lowing letters from my old friend Mr. Craig, long surgeon 
in Peebles, and who is now spending his evening, after a 
long, hard, and useful day's work, in the quiet vale of 
Manor, within a mile or two of " Cannie Elshie's " cot- 
tage. The picture he gives is very affecting, and should 
make us all thankful that we are " wiselike." There is 
much that is additional to Sir Walter's account, in his 
" Author's Edition " of the Waverley Novels. 



422 THE BLACK DWARF'S BONES. 

" Hall Manor, Thursday, May 20, 1858. 

"My dear Sir, — David Ritchie, alias Bowed Davie, 
was born at Easter Happrew, in the parish of Stobo, in 
the year 1741. He was brought to Woodhouse, in the 
parish of Manor, when very young. His father was a 
laborer, and occupied a cottage on that farm ; his mother, 
Anabel Niven, was a delicate woman, severely afflicted 
w r ith rheumatism, and could not take care of him when 
an infant. To this cause he attributed his deformity, and 
this, if added to imperfect clothing, and bad food, and 
poverty, will account for the grotesque figure which he 
became. He never was at school, but could read toler- 
ably ; had many books ; was fond of poetry, especially 
Allan Ramsay ; he hated Burns. His father and mother 
both died early, and poor Davie became a homeless wan- 
derer ; he was two years at Broughton Mill, employed in 
stirring the husks of oats, which were used for drying the 
corn on the kiln, and required to be kept constantly in 
motion ; he boasted, with a sort of rapture, of his doings 
there. From thence he went to Lyne's Mill, near his 
birth-place, where he continued one year at the same 
employment, and from thence he was sent to Edinburgh 
to learn brush-making, but made no progress in his edu- 
cation there ; was annoyed by the wicked boys, or keelies, 
as he called them, and found his way back to Manor and 
Woodhouse. The farm now possessed by Mr. Ballan- 
tyne, was then occupied by four tenants, among whom 
he lived ; but his house was at Old Woodhouse, where 
the late Sir James Nasmyth built him a house with two 
apartments, and separate outer doors, one for himself 
exactly his own height when standing upright in it ; and 
this stands as it was built, exactly four feet. A Mr. 



THE BLACK DWARF'S BONES. 423 

Ritchie, the father of the late minister of Athelstaneford, 
was then tenant ; his wife and Davie could not agree, and 
she repeatedly asked her husband to put him away, by 
making the highest stone of his house the lowest. Ritchie 
left, his house was pulled down, and Davie triumphed in 
having the stones of his chimney-top made a step to his 
door, when this new house was built. He was not a 
little vindictive at times when irritated, especially when 
any allusion was made to his deformity. On one occa- 
sion, he and some other boys were stealing pease in 
Mr. Gibson's field, who then occupied Woodhouse ; all 
the others took leg-bail, but Davie's locomotion being 
tardy, he was caught, shaken, and scolded by Gibson 
for all the rest. This he never forgot, and vowed to 
be avenged on the " auld sinner and deevil ; " and one 
day when Gibson was working about his own door, 
Davie crept up to the top of the house, which was low, 
and threw a large stone down on his head, which brought 
the old man to the ground. Davie crept down the other 
side of the house, got into bed beside his mother, and it 
was never known where the stone came from, till he 
boasted of it long afterwards. He only prayed that it 
might sink down through his "ham-pan" (his skull). 
His personal appearance seems to have been almost in- 
describable, not bearing any likeness to anything in this 
upper world. But as near as I can learn, his forehead 
was very narrow and low, sloping upwards and backward, 
something of the hatchet shape ; his eyes deep set, small, 
and piercing ; his nose straight, thin as the end of a cut 
of cheese, sharp at the point, nearly touching his fear- 
fully projecting chin ; and his mouth formed nearly a 
straight line ; his shoulders rather high, but his body 
otherwise the size of ordinary men; his arms were re- 



424 THE BLACK DWARF'S BONES. 

markably strong. With very little aid he built a high 
garden wall, which still stands, many of the stones of 
huge size ; these the shepherds laid to his directions. 
His legs beat all power of description ; they were bent 
in every direction, so that Mungo Park, then a surgeon 
at Peebles, who was called to operate on him for strangu- 
lated hernia, said he could compare them to nothing but 
a pair of corkscrews ; but the principal turn they took 
was from the knee outwards, so that he rested on his 
inner ankles, and the lower part of his tibias. 

1 An' his knotted knees play'd aye knoit between.' 

" He had never a shoe on his feet ; the parts on which 
he walked were rolled in rags, old stockings, &c, but the 
toes always bare, even in the most severe weather. His 
mode of progressing was as extraordinary as his shape. 
He carried a long pole, or ' kent,' like the Alpenstock, 
tolerably polished, with a turned top on it, on which he 
rested, placed it before him, he then lifted one leg, some- 
thing in the manner that the oar of a boat is worked, and 
then the other, next advanced his staff, and repeated the 
operation, by diligently doing which he was able to make 
not very slow progress. He frequently walked to Pee- 
bles, four miles, and back again, in one day. His arms 
had no motion at the elbow-joints, but were active enough 
otherwise. He was not generally ill-tempered, but furi- 
ous when roused. 

" Robert Craig." 

" Hall Manor, June 15, 1858. 
" My dear Sir, — I have delayed till now to finish 
Bowed Davie, in the hope of getting more information, 
and to very little purpose. His contemporaries are now 



THE BLACK DWARF'S BONES. 425 

so few, old, and widely scattered, that they are difficult to 
be got at, and when come at, their memories are failed, 
like their bodies. I have forgotten at what stage of his 
history I left off; but if I repeat, you can omit the repe- 
titions. Sir James Nasmyth, late of Posso, took compas- 
sion on the houseless, homeless lusus naturae, and had a 
house built for him to his own directions ; the door, win- 
dow, and everything to suit his diminished, grotesque 
form ; the door four feet high, the window twelve by 
eighteen inches, without glass, closed by a wooden board, 
hung on leathern hinges, which he used to keep shut. 
Through it he reconnoitred all visitors, and only admitted 
ladies and particular favorites ; he was very superstitious ; 
ghosts, fairies, and robbers he dreaded most. I have for- 
gotten if I mentioned how he contrived to be fed and 
warmed. He had a small allowance from the parish poor- 
box, about fifty shillings ; this was eked out by an annual 
peregrination through the parish, when some gave him 
food, others money, wool, &c, which he hoarded most mi- 
serly. How he cooked his food I have not been able to 
learn, for his sister, who lived in the same cottage with 
him, was separated by a stone and lime wall, and had a 
separate door of the usual size, and window to match, and 
was never allowed to enter his dwelling ; but he brought 
home such loads, that the shepherds had to be on the look- 
out for him, when on his annual eleemosynary expeditions, 
to carry home part of his spoil. On one occasion a servant 
was ordered to give him some salt, for containing which 
he carried a long stocking ; he thought the damsel had 
scrimped him in quantity, and he sat and distended the 
stocking till it appeared less than half full, by pressing 
down the salt, and then called for the gudewife, showed 
it her, and asked if she had ordered Jenny only to give 



426 THE BLACK DWARF'S BONES. 

him that wee pickle saut ; the maid was scolded, and the 
stocking filled. He spent all his evenings at the back of 
the Woodhouse kitchen fire, and got at least one meal 
every day, where he used to make the rustics gape and 
stare at the many ghost, fairy, and robber stories which 
he had either heard of or invented, and poured out with 
unceasing volubility, and so often that he believed them 
all true. But the Ballantyne family had no great faith 
in his veracity, when it suited his convenience to fib, ex- 
aggerate, or prevaricate, particularly when excited by his 
own lucubrations, or the waggery of his more intellectual 
neighbors and companions. He had a seat in the centre, 
which he always occupied, and a stool for his deformed 
feet and legs ; they all rose at times, asking Davie to do 
likewise, and when he got upon his pins, he was shorter 
than when sitting, his body being of the ordinary length, 
and the deficiency all in his legs. On one occasion, a 
wag named Elder put up a log of wood opposite his loop- 
hole, made a noise, and told Davie that the robbers he 
dreaded so much were now at his house, and would not 
go away ; he peeped out, and saw the log, exclaimed, 
' So he is, by the Lord God and my soul ; Willie Elder, 
gi'e me the gun, and see that she is weel charged.' 
Elder put in a very large supply of powder without shot, 
rammed it hard, got a stool, which Davie mounted, Elder 
handing him the gun, charging him to take time, and aim 
fair, for if he missed him, he would be mad at being shot 
at, be sure to come in, take everything in the house, cut 
their throats, and burn the house after. Davie trem- 
blingly obeyed, presented the gun slowly and cautiously, 
drew the trigger ; off went the shot, the musket re- 
bounded, and back went Davie with a rattle on the floor. 
Some accomplice tumbled the log ; Davie at length was 



THE BLACK DWARF'S BONES. 427 

encouraged to look out, and actually believed that he had 
shot the robber ; said he had done for him now, ' that ane 
wad plague him nae mair at ony rate.' He took it into 
his head at one time that he ought to be married, and 
having got the consent of a haverel wench to yoke with 
him in the silken bonds of matrimony, went to the minis- 
ter several times, and asked him to perform the cere- 
mony. At length the minister sent him away, saying 
that he could not and would not accommodate him in the 
matter. Davie swung himself out at the door on his 
kent, much crestfallen, and in great wrath, shutting the 
door with a bang behind him, but opening it again, he 
shook his clenched fist in the parson's face, and said, 
4 Weel, weel, ye'll no let decent, honest folk marry ; but, 
'od, lad, I'se plenish your parish wi' bastards, to see what 
ye'll mak o' that,' and away he went. He read Hooke's 
Pantheon, and made great use of the heathen deities. 
He railed sadly at the taxes ; some one observed that he 
need not grumble at them as he had none to pay. ' Hae 
I no' ? ' he replied, ' I can neither get a pickle snuff to 
my neb, nor a pickle tea to my mouth, but they maun 
tax 't.' His sister and he were on very unfriendly 
terms. She was ill on one occasion ; Miss Ballantyne 
asked how she was to-day. He replied, i I dinna ken, 
I ha'na been in, for I hate folk that are aye gaun to dee 
and never doV In 1811 he w r as seized with obstruction 
of the bowels and consequent inflammation; blisters and 
various remedies were applied for three days without 
effect. Some one came to Mrs. Ballantyne and said that 
it was 'just about a' owre wi' Davie noo.' She went, 
and he breathed his last almost immediately. His sister, 
without any delay, got his keys, and went to his secret 
repository, Mrs. Ballantyne thought to get dead-clothes, 



/ 



428 THE BLACK DWARF'S BONES. 

but instead, to the amazement of all present, she threw 
three money-bags, one after another, into Mrs. Ballan- 
tyne's lap, telling her to count that, and that, and that. 
Mrs. B. was annoyed and astonished at the multitude of 
half-crowns and shillings, all arranged according to value. 
He hated sixpences, and had none, but the third con- 
tained four guineas in gold. Mrs. B. was disgusted with 
the woman's greed, and put them all up, saying, what 
would anybody think if they came in and found them 
counting the man's money and his breath scarcely out, — 
took it all home to her husband, who made out £4 2s. in 
gold, £10 in a bank receipt, and £7 18s. in shillings and 
half-crowns, in all £22. How did he get this ? He had 
many visitors, the better class of whom gave him half- 
crowns, others shillings and sixpences ; the latter he 
never kept, but converted them into shillings and half- 
crowns whenever he got an opportunity. I asked the 
wright how he got him into a coffin. He replied, ' Ea- 
sily ; they made it deeper than ordinary, and wider, so as 
to let in his distorted legs, as it was impossible to streek 
him like others.' He often expressed a resolve to be 
buried on the Woodhill top, three miles up the water 
from the church-yard, as he could never ' lie amang the 
common trash ; ' however, this was not accomplished, as 
his friend, Sir James Nasmyth, who had promised to 
carry this wish into effect, was on the Continent at the 
time. When Sir James returned, he spoke of having his 
remains lifted and buried where he had wished ; but this 
was never done, and the expense of a railing and planta- 
tion of rowan-trees (mountain ash), his favorite prophy- 
lactic against the spells of witches and fairies, was aban- 
doned. The Woodhill is a romantic, green little mount, 
situated at the west side of the Manor, which washes its 






THE BLACK DWARF'S BONES. 429 

base on the east, and separates it from Langhaugh 
heights, part of a lofty, rocky, and heathery mountain 
range, and on the west is the ruin of the ancient peel- 
house of old Posso, long the residence of the Nasmyth 
family. And now that we have the Dwarf dead and 
buried, comes the history of his resurrection in 1821. 
His sister died exactly ten years after him. A report 
had been spread that he had been lifted and taken 
to dissecting-rooms in Glasgow, which at that period was 
the fate of many a more seemly corpse than Davie's ; 
and the young men — for Manor had no sexton — who 
dug the sister's grave in the vicinity of her brother's, 
stimulated by curiosity to see if his body had really been 
carried off, and if still there what his bones were like, 
lifted them up, and carried them to Woodhouse, where 
they lay a considerable time, till they were sent to Mr. 
Ballantyne, then in Glasgow. Miss Ballantyne thinks 
the skull was taken away with the other bones, but put 
back again. I have thus given you all the information 
I can gather about the Black Dwarf that I think worth 
narrating. It is reported that he sometimes sold a gill, 
but if this is true the Ballantynes never knew it. Miss 
Ballantyne says that he was not ill-tempered, but on 
the contrary, kind, especially to children. She and her 
brother were very young when she went to Woodhouse, 
and her father objected to resetting the farm from Sir 
James, on account of the fearful accounts of his horrid 
temper and barbarous deeds, and Sir James said if he ever 
troubled them that he would immediately put him away ; 
but he was very fond of the younger ones, played with 
them, and amused them, though when roused and pro- 
voked by grown-up people, he raged, stormed, swore ter- 
rifically, and struck with anything that was near him, in 



430 THE BLACK DWARF'S BONES. 

short, he had an irritable but not a sulky, sour, misan- 
thropic temper. The Messrs. Chambers wrote a book 
about him and his doings at a very early period of their 
literary history. Did I tell you of a female relative, 
Niven (whom he would never see), saying that she 
would come and streek him after he died ? He sent 
word, ' that if she offered to touch his corpse he would 
rive the thrapple oot o' her — he would raither be streek- 
it by Auld Clootie's ain red-het hands.' — Yours, truly 
obliged, R. C." 

This poor, vindictive, solitary, and powerful creature, 
was a philocalist : he had a singular love of flowers and 
of beautiful women. He was a sort of Paris, to whom 
the blushing Aphrodites of the glen used to come, and 
his judgment is said to have been as good, as the world 
generally thinks that of (Enone's handsome and faithless 
mate. His garden was full of the finest flowers, and it 
was his pleasure, when the young beauties 

" Who bore the blue sky intermixed with flame 
In their fair eyes," 

came to him for their competitive examination, to scan 
them well, and then, without one word, present each 
with a flower, which was of a certain fixed and well- 
known value in Davie's standard calimeter. 

I have heard that there was one kind of rose, his ko\- 
\lo-tuov, which he was known to have given only to 
three, and I remember seeing one of the three, when 
she was past seventy. Margaret Murray, or Morra, was 
her maiden name, and this fine old lady, whom an Oxo- 
nian would call a Double First, grave and silent, and bent 
with " the pains," when asked by us children, would, with 
some reluctance, and a curious grave smile, produce out 



THE BLACK DWARF'S BONES. 431 

of her Bible, Bowed Davie's withered and flattened rose; 
and from her looks, even then, 1 was inclined to affirm 
the decision of the connoisseur of Manor Water. One 
can fancy the scene in that sweet solitary valley, inform- 
ed like its sister Yarrow with pastoral melancholy, with 
a young May, bashful and eager, presenting herself for 
honors, encountering from under that pent houseof eye- 
brows the steady gaze of the strange eldritch creature ; 
and then his making up his mind, and proceeding to 
pluck his award and present it to her, " herself a fairer 
flower," and then turning with a scowl, crossed with a 
look of tenderness, crawl into his den. Poor " gloomy 
Dis," slinking in alone. 

They say, that when the candidate came, he surveyed 
her from his window, his eyes gleaming out of the dark- 
ness, and if he liked her not he disappeared ; if he would 
entertain her, he beckoned her into the garden. 

I have often thought that the Brownie, of whom the 
south country legends are so full, must have been some 
such misshapen creature, strong, willing, and forlorn, 
conscious of his hideous forbidding looks, and ready to 
purchase affection at any cost of labor, with a kindly 
heart, and a longing for human sympathy and inter- 
course. Such a being looks like the prototype of the 
Aiken-Drum of our infancy, and of that " drudging gob- 
lin," of whom we all know how he 

4 

" Sweat 

To earn his cream-bowl daily set, 
When in one night, ere glimpse of morn, 
His shadowy flail hath thresh' d the corn, 
That ten day lab'rers could not end ; 
Then lies him down, the lubber * fiend, 

1 Lob-lye-by-the-fire. 



432 THE BLACK DWARF'S BOXES. 

And stretch' d out all the chimney's length, 
Basks at the fire his hairy strength, 
And cropful out of doors he flings, 
Ere the first cock his matin rings." 

My readers will, I am sure, more than pardon me for 
giving them the following poem on Afken-Drum, for the 
pleasure of first reading which, many years ago, I am 
indebted to Mr. R. Chambers's Popular Rhymes of Scot- 
land, where its " extraordinary merit " is generously 
acknowledged. 



THE BKOWNIE OF BLEDNOCH. 

There cam 1 a strange wicht to our town-en' , 
An' the fient a body did him ken ; 
He tirl'd na lang, but he glided ben 
Wi' a dreary, dreary hum. 

His face did glow like the glow o' the west, 
When the drumlie cloud has it half o'ercast; 
Or the struggling moon when she's sair distrest, 
sirs ! 'twas Aiken-drum. 

I trow the bauldest stood aback, 
Wi' a gape an' a glow'r till their lugs did crack, 
As the shapeless phantom mum'ling spak, 
Hae ye wark for Aiken-drum ! 

! had ye seen the bairns' fricht, 
As they stared at this wild and unyirthly wicht, 
As they skulkit in 'tween the dark an' the licht, 
An' graned out, Aiken-drum ! 

" Sauf us! " quoth Jock, " d'ye see sick e'en? " 
Cries Kate, " There's a hole where a nose should ha' been ; 
An' the mouth's like a gash that a horn had ri'en; 
Wow! keep's frae Aiken-drum! " 



THE BLACK DWARF'S BONES. 433 

The black dog growlin' cow'red his tail, 
The lassie swarf' d, loot fa' the pail; 
Rob's lingle brack as he mendit the flail, 
At the sicht o' Aiken-drum. 

His matted head on his breast did rest, 
A lang blue beard wan'ered down like a vest; 
But the glare o' his e'e hath nae bard exprest, 
Nor the skimes o' Aiken-drum. 

Roun' his hairy form there was naething seen, 
But a philabeg o' the rashes green, 
An' his knotted knees piay'd aye knoit between; 
What a sicht was Aiken-drum ! 

On his wauchie arms three claws did meet, 
As they trail'd on the grun' by his taeless feet; 
E'en the auld gudeman himsel' did sweat, 
To look at Aiken-drum. 

But he drew a score, himsel' did sain, 
The auld wife tried, but her tongue was gane; 
While the young ane closer clespit her wean, 
And turn'd frae Aiken-drum. 

But the canty auld wife cam till her braith, 
And she thocht the Bible micht ward aff scaith ; 
Be it benshee, bogle, ghaist, or wraith — 
But it fear'd na Aiken-drum. 

" His presence protect us! " quoth the auld gudeman; 
" What wad ye, whare won ye, — by sea or by Ian' ? 
I conjure ye — speak — by the Beuk in my han' ! " 
What a grane gae Aiken-drum ! 

" I lived in a Ian' whare we saw nae sky, 
I dwalt in a spot whare a burn rins na by ; 
But I'se dwall noo wi' you if ye like to try — 
Hae ye wark for Aiken drum ? 

" I'll shiel a' your sheep i' the mornin' sune, 1 
I'll berry your crap by the licht o' the moon, 

1 On one occasion, Brownie had undertaken to gather the sheep into 
28 



434 THE BLACK DWARF'S BONES. 

An' ba the bairns wi' an unkenn'd tune, 
If ve 1 11 keep puir Aiken-drum. 

" I'll loup the linn when ye canna wade, 
I'll kirn the kirn, an' I'll turn the bread; 
An' the wildest fillie that e'er ran rede 
I'se tame't,' quoth Aiken-drum! 

" To wear the tod frae the flock on the fell — 
To gather the dew frae the heather-bell — 
An' to look at my face in your clear crystal well, 
Micht gie pleasure to Aiken-drum. 

" I'se seek nae guids, gear, bond, nor mark; 
I use nae beddin', shoon, nor sark; 
But a cogfu' o' brose 'tween the licht an' the dark, 
Is the wage o' Aiken-drum." 

Quoth the wylie auld wife, " The thing speaks weel ; 
Our workers are scant — we hae routh o' meal ; 
Giff he'll do as he says — be he man, be he de'il, 
Wow! we'll try this Aiken-drum." 

But the wenches skirl'd, " He's no' be here ! 
His eldritch look gars us swarf wi' fear; 
An' the feint a ane will the house come near, 
If they think but o' Aiken-drum. 

" For a foul and a stalwart ghaist is he, 
Despair sits broodin' aboon his e'e-bree, 
And unchancie to light o' a maiden's e'e, 
Is the glower o' Aiken-drum." 

" Puir clipmalabors ! ye hae little wit; 
Is't na hallowmas noo, an' the crap out yet? " 
Sae she seelenc'd them a' wi' a stamp o' her fit, 
" Sit-yer-wa's-down, Aiken-drum." 

the bught by an early hour, and so zealously did he perform his task, 
that not only was there not one sheep left on the hill, but he had also 
collected a number of hares, which were found fairly penned along with 
them. Upon being congratulated on his extraordinary success, Brownie 
exclaimed, " Confound thae wee gray anes! they cost me mair trouble 
than a' the lave o' them." 



THE BLACK DWARF'S BONES. 435 

Roun' a' that side what wark was dune, 
By the streamer's gleam, or the glance o' the moon; 
A word, or a wish — an' the Brownie cam sune, 
Sae helpfu' was Aiken-drum. 

But he slade aye awa or the sun was up, 
He ne'er could look straught on Macmillan's cup ; 1 
They watch' d — but nane saw him his brose ever sup, 
Nor a spune sought Aiken-drum. 

On Blednoch banks, an' on crystal Cree, 
For mony a day a toil'd wicht was he; 
And the bairns they play'd harmless roun' his knee, 
Sae social was Aiken-drum. 

But a new-made wife, fu' o' rippish freaks, 
Fond o' a' things feat for the five first weeks, 
Laid a mouldy pair o' her ain man's breeks 
By the brose o' Aiken-drum. 

Let the learn' d decide when they convene, 
What spell was him an' the breeks between ; 
For frae that day forth he was nae mair seen, 
An' sair miss'd was Aiken-drum. 

He was heard by a herd gaun by the Thrieve, 
Crying, " Lang, lang now may I greet an' grieve; 
For alas! I hae gotten baith fee an' leave, 
O luckless Aiken-drum! " 

Awa ! ye wrangling sceptic tribe, 
Wi' your pro's an' your con's wad ye decide 
'Gainst the 'sponsible voice o' a hale country-side 
On the facts 'bout Aiken-drum ? 

1 A communion cup, belonging to M'Millan, the well-known ousted 
minister of Balmaghie, and founder of the sect of Covenanters of his 
name. This cup was treasured by a zealous disciple in the parish of 
Kirkcowan, and long used as a test by which to ascertain the ortho- 
doxy of suspected persons. If, on taking it into his hand, the person 
trembled, or gave other symptoms of agitation, he was denounced 
as having bowed the knee to Baal, and sacrificed at the altar of 
idolatry. 



436 THE BLACK DWARF'S BOXES. 

Tho' the " Brownie o' Blednoch " lang be gane, 
The mark o' his feet's left on mony a stane; 
An' mony a wife an' mony a wean 
Tell the feats o' Aiken-drum. 

E'en now, licht loons that jibe an' sneer 
At spiritual guests an' a' sic gear, 
At the Glasnock mill hae swat wi' fear, 
An' look'd roun' for Aiken-drum. 

An' guidly folks hae gotten a fricht, 
When the moon was set, an' the stars gaed nac licht, 
At the roaring linn in the howe o' the nicht, 
Wi' sughs like Aiken-drum. 



"We would rather have written these lines than any 
amount of Aurora Leighs, Festuses, or such like, with 
all their mighty " somethingness," as Mr. Bailey would 
say. For they, are they not the "native wood-notes 
wild" of one of nature's darlings? Here is the inde- 
scribable, inestimable, unmistakable impress of genius. 
Chaucer, had he been a Galloway man, might have writ- 
ten it, only he would have been more garrulous, and less 
compact and stern. It is like Tarn o' Shanter, in its liv- 
ing union of the comic, the pathetic, and the terrible. 
Shrewdness, tenderness, imagination, fancy, humor, word- 
music, dramatic power, even wit — all are here. I have 
often read it aloud to children, and it is worth any one's 
while to do it. You will find them repeating all over 
the house for days such lines as take their heart and 
tongue. 

The author of this noble ballad was William Nichol- 
son, the Galloway poet, as he was, and is still called in 
his own district. He was born at Tanimaus, in the 
parish of Borgue, in August 1783 ; he died circa 1848, 



THE BLACK DWARF'S BONES. 437 

unseen, like a bird. Being extremely short-sighted, he 
was unfitted for being a shepherd or ploughman, and 
began life as a packman, like the hero of " the Excur- 
sion ; " and is still remembered in that region for his 
humor, his music, his verse, and his ginghams ; and also, 
alas ! for his misery and his sin. After travelling the 
country for thirty years, he became a packless pedler, 
and fell into " a way of drinking ; " this led from bad to 
worse, and the grave closed in gloom over the ruins of a 
man of true genius. Mr. M'Diarmid of Dumfries pre- 
fixed a memoir of him to the Second Edition of his 
Tales in Verse and Miscellaneous Poems. These are 
scarcely known out of Galloway, but they are worth the 
knowing ; none of them have the concentration and 
nerve of the Brownie, but they are from the same brain 
and heart. " The Country Lass," a long poem, is ex- 
cellent ; with much of Crabbe's power and compression. 
This, and the greater part of the volume, is in the Scot- 
tish dialect, but there is a Fable — the Butterfly and 
Bee — the English and sense, the fine, delicate humor 
and turn of which might have been Cowper's ; and there 
is a bit of rugged sarcasm called " Siller," which Burns 
need not have been ashamed of. Poor Nicholson, be- 
sides his turn for verse, was an exquisite musician, and 
sang with a powerful and sweet voice. One may imag- 
ine the delight of a lonely town-end, when Willie the 
packman and the piper made his appearance, with his 
stories, and jokes, and ballads, his songs, and reels, and 
" wanton wiles/' 

There is one story about him which has always ap- 
peared to me quite perfect. A farmer, in a remote part 
of Galloway, one June morning before sunrise, was 
awakened by music ; he had been dreaming of heaven, 



438 THE BLACK DWARF'S BONES. 

and when he found himself awake, he still heard the 
strains. He looked out, and saw no one, but at the 
corner of a grass-field he saw his cattle, and young colts 
and fillies, huddled together, and looking intently down 
into what he knew was an old quarry. He put on his 
clothes, and walked across the field, everything but that 
strange wild melody, still and silent in this the " sweet 
hour of prime." As he got nearer the "beasts," the 
sound was louder ; the colts with their long manes, and 
the nowt with their wondering stare, took no notice of 
him, straining their necks forward entranced. There, 
in the old quarry, the young sun " glintin " on his face, 
and resting on his pack, which had been his pillow, was 
our Wandering Willie, playing and singing like an angel 
— " an Orpheus ; an Orpheus." What a picture ! When 
reproved for wasting his health and time by the prosaic 
farmer, the poor fellow said : " Me and this quarry are 
lang acquant, and I've mair pleesure in pipin to thae 
daft cowts, than if the best leddies in the land were 
figurin away afore me." 



NOTES ON ART 



" The use of this feigned history " (the Ideal Arts of Poesy, Painting, 
Music, tfc.) "hath been to give some shadow of satisfaction to 

THE MIND OF MAN IN THESE POINTS WHEREIN THE NATURE OF 

things doth deny it, the world being in proportion inferior to the 
soul; by reason whereof there is, agreeable to the spirit of man, A more 
ample greatness, a more exact goodness and a more ab- 
solute variety, than can be found in the nature of things. So it 
appeareth that Poesy" {and the others) " serveth and conferreth to mag- 
nanimity, morality, and to delectation. And therefore it was even thought 
to have some participation of divineness because it doth raise and di- 
rect THE MIND, BY SUBMITTING THE SHEWS OF THINGS TO THE DE- 
SIRES of the mind ; whereas reason (science, philosophy) doth " buckle 
and bow the mind to the nature of things." — Of the Proficience 

AND ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 

" To look on noble forms 
Makes noble through the sensuous organism 
That which is higher.'"' — The Princess. 




NOTES ON ART. 1 

NE evening in the spring of 1846, as my wife 
and I were sitting at tea, Parvula in bed, 
and the Sputchard reposing, as was her wont, 
with her rugged little brown forepaws over 
the edge of the fender, her eyes shut, toasting, and all 
but roasting herself at the fire, — a note was brought in, 
which from its fat, soft look, by a hopeful and not un- 
skilled palpation I diagnosed as that form of lucre which 
in Scotland may well be called filthy. I gave it across 
to Madam, who, opening it, discovered four five-pound 
notes, and a letter addressed to me. She gave it me. 
It was from Hugh Miller, editor of the Witness news- 
paper, asking me to give him a notice of the Exhibi- 
tion of the Scottish Academy then open, in words I now 
forget, but which were those of a thorough gentleman, 
and enclosing the aforesaid fee. I can still remember, 
or indeed feel the kind of shiver, half of fear and pleas- 
ure, on encountering this temptation ; but I soon said, 
" You know I can't take this ; I can't write ; I never 
wrote a word for the press." She, with " wifelike gov- 
ernment," kept the money, and heartened me to write, 
and write I did but with awful sufferings and difficulty, 
and much destruction of sleep. I think the only person 

1 Originally prefixed to a Criticism on some paintings in the Scot- 
tish Academy. 



442 NOTES ON AKT. 

who suffered still more must have been the compositor. 
Had this packet not come in, and come in when it did, 
and had the Sine Qua Non not been peremptory and 
retentive, there are many chances to one I might never 
have plagued any printer with my bad hand and my 
endless corrections, and general incoherency in all trans- 
actions as to proofs. 

I tell this small story, partly for my own pleasure, 
and as a tribute to that remarkable man, who stands 
alongside of Burns, and Scott, Chalmers, and Carlyle, 
the foremost Scotsmen of their time, — a rough, almost 
rugged nature, shaggy with strength, clad with zeal as 
with a cloak, in some things sensitive and shamefaced as 
a girl ; moody and self-involved, but never selfish, full of 
courage, and of keen insight into nature and men, and 
the principles of both, but simple as a child in the ways 
of the world ; self-taught and self-directed, argumenta- 
tive and scientific, as few men of culture have ever been, 
and yet with more imagination than either logic or 
knowledge ; to the last as shy and blate as when work- 
ing in the quarries at Cromarty. In his life a noble 
example of what our breed can produce, of what energy, 
honesty, intensity, and genius can achieve ; and in his 
death a terrible example of that revenge which the body 
takes upon the soul when brought to bay by its inex- 
orable taskmaster. I need say no more. His story is 
more tragic than any tragedy. Would to God it may 
warn those who come after to be wise in time, to take 
the same — I ask no more — care of their body, which 
is their servant, their beast of burden, as they would 
of their horse. 

Few men are endowed with such a brain as Hugh 
Miller — huge, active, concentrated, keen to fierceness ; 



NOTES ON ART. 443 

and therefore few men need fear, even if they misuse 
and overtask theirs as he did, that it will turn, as it did 
with him, and rend its master. But as assuredly as 
there is a certain weight which a bar of iron will bear 
and no more, so is there a certain weight of work which 
the organ by which we act, by which we think, and feel, 
and will — cannot sustain, blazing up into brief and ruin- 
ous madness, or sinking into idiocy. At the time he 
wrote to me, Mr. Miller and I were strangers, and I 
don't think I ever spoke to him : but his manner of doing 
the above act made me feel, that in that formidable and 
unkempt nature there lay the delicacy, the generosity, 
the noble trustfulness of a gentleman born — not made. 

Most men have, and almost every man should have a 
hobby : it is exercise in a mild way, and does not take 
him away from home ; it diverts him ; and by having 
a double line of rails, he can manage to keep the per- 
manent way in good condition. A man who has only 
one object in life, only one line of rails, who exercises 
only one set of faculties, and these only in one way, will 
wear himself out much sooner than a man who shunts 
himself every now and then, and who has trains coming 
as well as going ; w r ho takes in as well as gives out. 

My hobby has always been pictures, and all we call 
Art. I have fortunately never been a practitioner, 
though I think I could have made a tolerable hand ; but 
unless a man is a thoroughly good artist, he injures his 
enjoyment, generally speaking, of the art of others. I 
am convinced, however, that to enjoy art thoroughly, 
every man must have in him the possibility of doing it 
as well as liking it. He must feel it in his fingers, as 
well as in his head and at his eyes ; and it must find its 
way from all the three to his heart, and be emotive. 



444 NOTES ON ART. 

Much has been said of the power of Art to refine 
men, to soften their manners, and make them less of 
wild beasts. Some have thought it omnipotent for this ; 
others have given it as a sign of the decline and fall of 
the nobler part of us. Neither is, and both are true. 
Art does, as our Laureate says, make nobler in us what 
is higher than the senses through which it passes ; but 
it can only make nobler what is already noble ; it can- 
not regenerate, neither can it of itself debase and emas- 
culate and bedevil mankind ; but it is a symptom, and a 
fatal one, when Art ministers to a nation's vice, and glo- 
rifies its naughtiness — as in old Rome, as in Oude — as 
also too much in places nearer in time and place than the 
one and the other. The truth is, Art, unless quickened 
from above and from within, has in it nothing beyond 
itself, which is visible beauty — the ministration to the 
lust, the desire of the eye. But apart from direct spirit- 
ual worship, and self-dedication to the Supreme, I do not 
know any form of ideal thought and feeling which may 
be made more truly to subserve, not only magnanimity, 
but the purest devotion and godly fear ; by fear meaning 
that mixture of love and awe, which is specific of the 
realization of our relation to God. I am not so silly as 
to seek painters to paint religious pictures in the usual 
sense; for the most part, I know nothing so profoundly 
profane and godless as our sacred pictures ; and I can't 
say I like our religious beliefs to be symbolized, even as 
Mr. Hunt has so grandly done in his picture of the Light 
of the World. But if a painter is himself religious ; if 
he feels God in what he is looking at, and in what he is 
rendering back on his canvas ; if he is impressed with 
the truly divine beauty, infinity, perfection, and meaning 
of unspoiled material nature — the earth and the fulness 



NOTES ON ART. 445 

thereof, the heaven and all its hosts, the strength of the 
hills, the sea and all that is therein ; if he is himself im- 
pressed with the divine origin and divine end of all visi- 
ble things, — then will he paint religious pictures and 
impress men religiously, and thus make good men listen, 
and possibly make bad men good. Take the landscapes 
of our own Harvey. He is my dear old friend of thirty 
years, and his power as a painter is only less than his 
fidelity and ardor as a friend, and that than his simple, 
deep-hearted piety ; I never see one of his transcripts of 
nature, be they solemn and full of gloom, with a look 
" that threatens the profane ; " or laughing all over with 
sunshine and gladness, but I feel something beyond, 
something greater and more beautiful than their great- 
ness and their beauty — the idea of God, of the begin- 
ning and the ending, the first and the last, the living 
One ; of whom, and through whom, and to whom are 
all things ; who is indeed God over all, blessed forever ; 
and whom I would desire, in all humbleness of mind, 
to sanctify in my heart, and to make my fear and my 
dread. This is the true moral use of Art, to quicken 
and deepen and enlarge our sense of God. I don't 
mean so much our belief in certain articulate doctrines, 
though I am old-fashioned enough to think that we must 
know what as well as in whom we believe — that our 
religion, like everything else, must " have its seat in rea- 
son, and be judicious ; " I refer rather to that temper of 
the soul, that mood of the mind in which we feel the un- 
seen and eternal, and bend under the power of the world 
to come. 

In my views as to the office of the State I hold with 
John Locke and Coventry Dick, 1 that its primary, and 

1 In the thin octavo, The Office of the State, and in its twin volume 



446 NOTES ON ART. 

probably its only function is to protect us from our ene- 
mies and from ourselves ; that to it is intrusted by the 
people " the regulation of physical force ; " and that it is 
indeed little more than a transcendental policeman. This 
is its true sphere, and here lies its true honor and glory. 
When it intermeddles with other things, — from your Re- 
ligion, Education, and Art, down to the number, and size, 
and metal of your buttons, it goes out of its line and 
fails ; and I am convinced that with some benefits, spe- 
cious and partial, our Government interference has, in 
the main and in the long run, done harm to the real 
interests of Art. Spontaneity, the law of free choice, is 
as much the life of Art as it is of marriage, and it is not 
less beyond the power of the State to choose the nation's 
pictures, than to choose its wives. Indeed there is a 
great deal on the physiological side to be said for law 
interfering in the matter of matrimony, I would cer- 
tainly make it against law, as it plainly is against nature, 
for cousins-german to marry ; and if we could pair our- 
selves as we pair our live stock, and give ear to the 
teaching of an enlightened zoonomy, we might soon drive 
many of our fellest diseases out of our breed ; but the 
law of personality, of ultroneousness, of free will, that 
which in a great measure makes us what we are, steps in 
and forbids anything but the convincement and force of 

on Church Polity, there will be found in clear, strong, and singularly 
candid language, the first lines of the sciences of Church and State 
politics. It does not say much for the sense and perspicuity of the 
public mind, if two such books are allowed to fall aside, and such a 
farrago of energetic nonsense and error as Mr. Buckle's first, and we 
trust last, volume on Civilization, is read and admired, and bought, 
with its bad logic, its bad facts, and its bad conclusions. In bulk and 
in value his volume stands in the same relation to Mr. Dick's, as a 
handful, I may say a gowpen of chaff does to a grain of wheat, or a 
bushel of sawdust to an ounce of meal. 



NOTES ON ART. 447 

reason. Much in the same way, though it be a more 
trivial matter, pleasure, in order to please, must be that 
which you yourself choose. You cannot make an Es- 
quimaux forswear train oil, and take to tea and toast like 
ourselves, still less to boiled rice like a Hindoo ; neither 
can you all at once make a Gilmerton carter prefer Raph- 
ael and claret to a glass of raw whiskey and the Terrific 
Register. Leviathan is not so tamed or taught. And 
our Chadwicks and Kaye Shuttleworths and Coles — 
kings though they may be — enlightened, energetic, ear- 
nest, and as full of will as an egg is full of meat, cannot 
in a generation make the people of England as intelligent 
as themselves, or as fond and appreciative of the best 
Art as Mr. Ruskin. Hence all their plans are failing 
and must fail ; and I cannot help thinking that in the 
case of Art, the continuance of the Cole dynasty is not 
to be prayed for very much. As far as I can judge, it 
has done infinitely more harm than good. These men 
think they are doing a great work, and, worse still, the 
country thinks so too, and helps them, whereas I believe 
they are retarding the only wholesome, though slow 
growth of knowledge and taste. 

Take the Kensington Museum: the only thing there 
(I speak in all seriousness) worth any man spending an 
hour or a shilling upon, are the Sheepshank and Turner 
galleries ; all those costly, tawdry, prodigious, and petty 
displays of arts and manufactures, I look upon as mere 
delusions and child's play. Take any one of them, say 
the series illustrating the cotton fabrics ; you see the 
whole course of cotton from its Alpha to its Omega, in 
the neatest and prettiest way. What does that teach? 
what impression does that make upon any young mind ? 
Little beyond mere vapid wonder. The eye is opened, 
but not filled ; it is a stare, not a look. 



448 NOTES ON ART. 

If you want to move, and permanently rivet, a young 
mind with what is worth the knowing, with what is to 
deepen his sense of the powers of the human mind, and 
the resources of nature, and the grandeur of his coun- 
try, take him to a cotton-mill. Let him hear and come 
under the power of that wonderful sound pervading the 
whole vast house, and filling the air with that diapason 
of regulated, harmonious energy. Let him enter it, and 
go round with a skilled workman, and then follow the 
Alpha through all its marvellous transformations to the 
Omega ; do this, and you bring him out into the fresh air 
not only more knowing, but more wise. He has got a 
lesson. He has been impressed. The same with cal- 
ico-printing, and pottery, and iron-founding, and, indeed, 
the whole round of that industry which is our glory. 
Do you think a boy will get half the good from the 
fine series of ores and specimens of pig-iron, and all 
the steels he may see in cold blood, and with his grand- 
mother or his sweetheart beside him at Kensington, that 
he will from going into Dixon's foundry at Govan, and 
seeing the half-naked men toiling in that place of flame 
and energy and din — watching the mighty shears and 
the Nasmyth-hammers, and the molten iron kneaded like 
dough, and planed and shaved like wood; he gets the 
dead and dissected body in the one case ; he sees and 
feels the living spirit and body working as one, in the 
other. And upon all this child's-play, this mere make-be- 
lieve, our good-natured nation is proud of spending some 
half-million of money. Then there is that impertinent, 
useless, and unjust system of establishing Government 
Schools of Design in so many of our towns, avowedly, 
and, I believe (though it is amazing that clever men 
should do such a foolish thing), honestly, for the good 
of the working-classes, but actually and lamentably, and 



NOTES ON ART. 449 

in every way harmfully, for the amusement and benefit 
of the wealthy classes, and to the ruin of the hard-work- 
ing and legitimate local teachers. 

I have not time or space, but if I had I could prove 
this, and show the curiously deep injuries this system is 
inflicting on true Art, and upon the freedom of industry. 

In the same line, and to the same effect, are our Art- 
Unions and Associations for " the encouragement " of 
Art; some less bad than others, but all bad, because 
founded upon a wrong principle, and working to a 
wrong end. No man can choose a picture for another, 
any more than a wife or a waistcoat. It is part of our 
essential nature to choose these things for ourselves, 
and paradoxical as it may seem, the wife and the waist- 
coat and the work of Art our departmental wiseacres 
may least approve of, if chosen sua sponte by Giles 
or Roger, will not only give them more delectation, but 
do them more good, than one chosen by somebody else 
for him upon the finest of all possible principles. Be- 
sides this radical vice, these Art-Unions have the effect 
of encouraging, and actually bringing into professional 
existence, men who had much better be left to die out, 
or never be born ; and it, as I well know, discourages, 
depreciates, and dishonors the best men, besides keep- 
ing the public, which is the only true and worthy pa- 
tron, from doing its duty, and getting its due. Just 
take our Edinburgh Association, in many respects one 
of the best, having admirable and devoted men, as its 
managers, what is the chance that any of the thousand 
members, when he draws a prize, gets a picture he 
cares one straw for, or which will do his nature one 
particle of good ? Why should we be treated in this 
matter, as we are treated in no way else ? Who thinks 
29 



450 NOTES ON ART. 

of telling us, or founding a Royal Association with all 
its officers, to tell us what novels or what poetry to read, 
or what music to listen to ? Think of a Union for the 
encouragement of Poetry, where Mr. Tennyson would 
be obliged to put in his In Memoriam or his Idylls of 
the King, along with the Lyrics and the Sonnets of we 
don't say who, into a common lottery, and be drawn 
for at an annual speechifying ? All such associations go 
to encourage quantity rather than quality. Now, in the 
ideal and pleasurable arts quality is nearly everything. 
Our Turner not only transcends ten thousand Claudes 
and Vanderveldes ; he is in another sphere. You could 
not thus sum up his worth. 

One of the most flagrant infractions of the primary 
laws of political economy, and one of the most curious 
illustrations of the fashionable fallacies as to Govern- 
ment encouragement to Art, is to be found in the rev- 
elations in the Report of the Select Committee on the 
South Kensington Museum. Mr. Lowe, and the ma- 
jority of the Committee, gave it as their opinion, that 
Government should deal in photographs, and undersell 
them (thereby ruining the regular trade), and all for the 
encouragement of Art, and the enlightenment of the pub- 
lic ! Can there be anything more absurd than this, and 
at this time of day ? and not only absurd and expensive, 
but mischievous. All this, you see, would be avoided, 
and society left to provide its own Art, as it provides 
its own beef and trousers for itself; if men would hold 
with John Locke, and Coventry Dick, and Ugomet, that 
the Government, the State, has simply nothing to do with 
these things, that they are ultra vires not less than relig- 
ion, and, I am bold to add, education. 

One other drawback to Art taking its place alongside 



NOTES ON ART. 451 

its sisters — Poetry and Music — is the annual exhibi- 
tions. Nothing more thoroughly barbarous and child- 
ish could be devised than this concentrating the mental 
activity of the nation in regard to the Art of the year 
upon one month. Fancy our being obliged to read all 
our novels, and all our poetry, and hear all our music 
in a segment of our year. Then there is the mixing 
up of all sorts of pictures — sacred and profane, gay and 
sombre, etc. — all huddled together, and the eye flitting 
from one to the other. 1 Hence the temptation to paint 
down to the gaudiest pictures, instead of up or into the 
pure intensity of nature. Why should there not be 
some large public hall to which artists may send their 
pictures at any time when they are perfected ; but bet- 
ter still, let purchasers frequent the studios, as they did 
of old, full of love and knowledge. Why will we in- 
sist in pressing our Art and our taste, as we did long 
ago our religion and our God, upon our neighbors ! 
Why not trust to time, and to cultivating our own tastes 
earnestly, thoroughly, humbly, and for ourselves, filling 
our houses with the best of everything, and making all 
welcome to see them, and believing that the grandchil- 
dren of those who come to see our Turners and Wilkies 
and Hogarths will be wiser and more refined than we ? 
It is most lamentable to witness the loss of money, of 
energy, and in a measure of skill, and, above all, of 
time, on those engravings, which no one but a lodg- 
ing-keeper frames, and those Parian statuettes and 
Etruscan pitchers and tazzas of all sorts, which no one 
thinks half so much of, or gets half so much real pleas- 
ure and good from, as from one of John Leech's wood- 

1 In our excellent National Gallery (Edinburgh), a copy of Titian's 
Ariadne in Naxos is hung immediately above Wilkie's sacred sketch 
of John Knox administering the Sacrament in Calder House! 



452 NOTES ON ART. 

cuts. One true way to encourage Art is to buy and 
enjoy Punch. There is more fun, more good drawing, 
more good sense, more beauty in John Leech's Punch 
pictures, than in all the Art-Union illustrations, en- 
gravings, statuettes, etc. etc., put together. Could that 
mighty Potentate have been got up, think you, by a 
committee of gentlemen, and those drawings educed by 
proffered prizes ? No ; they came out, and have flour- 
ished according to a law as natural and as effective as 
the law of seed-time and harvest ; and Art, as a power 
to do good, will never reach its full perfection till it is 
allowed to walk at liberty, and follow the course of all 
other productions, that of supply and demand, individ- 
ual demand, and voluntary supply. It is not easy to 
tell how far back these well-meaning, zealous, deluded 
men who have managed these " encouragements," have 
put the progress of the nation in its power of knowing 
and feeling true Art. 

One other heresy I must vent, and that is to protest 
against the doctrine that scientific knowledge is of much 
direct avail to the artist ; it may enlarge his mind as a 
man, and sharpen and strengthen his nature, but the 
knowledge of anatomy is, I believe, more a snare than 
anything else to an artist as such. Art is the tertium 
quid resulting from observation and imagination, with 
skill and love and downrightness as their executors ; 
anything that interferes with the action of any of these, 
is killing to the soul of Art. Now, painting has to do 
simply and absolutely with the surfaces, with the appear- 
ances of things ; it knows and cares nothing for what is 
beneath and beyond, though if it does its own part aright 
it indicates them. Phidias and the early Greeks, there 
is no reason to believe, ever. dissected even a monkey, 
much less a man, and yet where is there such skin, and 



NOTES ON ART. 453 

muscle, and substance, and breath of life ? When Art 
became scientific, as among the Romans, and lost its 
heart in filling its head, see what became of it : anatomy 
offensively thrust in your face, and often bad anatomy ; 
men skinned and galvanized, not men alive and in action. 
In the same way in landscape, do you think Turner 
would have painted the strata in an old quarry, or done 
Ben Cruachan more to the quick, had he known all 
about geology, gneiss, and graywacke, and the Silurian 
system ? Turner might have been what is called a 
better-informed man, but we question if he would have 
been so good, not to say a better representer of the 
wonderful works of God, which were painted on his 
retina, and in his inner chamber — the true Camera 
luctda, the chamber of imagery leading from the other, 
— and felt to his finger-tips. No ; science and poetry 
are to a nicety diametrically opposed, and he must be a 
Shakspeare and a Newton, a Turner and a Faraday all 
in one, who can consort much with both without injury to 
each. It is not what a man has learned from others, not 
even what he thinks, but what he sees and feels, which 
makes him a painter. 

The moral from all this is, love Art, and if you choose, 
practise Art. Purchase Art for itself alone, and in the 
main for yourself alone. If you so do, you will en- 
courage Art to more purpose than if you spent thou- 
sands a year in Art-Unions, and in presenting the public 
with what pleased you ; just as a man does most good by 
being good. Goldsmith puts it in his inimitable way — 
" I was ever of opinion that the honest man, who mar- 
ried and brought up a large family, did more service 
than he who continued single, and only talked of popu- 
lation." 



454 NOTES ON ART. 

I have said those things strongly, abruptly, and per- 
haps rudely ; but my heart is in the matter. Art is part 
of my daily food, like the laughter of children, and the 
common air, the earth, the sky ; it is an affection, not a 
passion to come and go like the gusty wind, nor a prin- 
ciple cold and dead ; it penetrates my entire life, it is one 
of the surest and deepest pleasures, one of the refuges 
from " the nature of things," as Bacon would say, into 
that enchanted region, that "ampler asther," that "diviner 
air," where we get a glimpse not only of a Paradise that 
is past, but of a Paradise that is to come. 

There is one man amongst us who has done more to 
breathe the breath of life into the literature and the phi- 
losophy of Art, who has " encouraged " it ten thousand 
times more effectually than all our industrious Coles and 
anxious Art-Unions, and that is the author of Modern 
Painters, I do not know that there is anything in our 
literature, or in any literature, to compare with the effect 
of this one man's writings. He has by his sheer force 
of mind, and fervor of nature, the depth and exactness of 
his knowledge, and his amazing beauty and power of 
language, raised the subject of Art from being subor- 
dinate and technical, to the same level with Poetry and 
Philosophy. He has lived to see an entire change in 
the public mind and eye, and, what is better, in the 
public heart, on all that pertains to the literature and 
philosophy of representative genius. He combines its 
body and its soul. Many before him wrote about its 
body, and some well ; a few, as Charles Lamb and our 
own " Titmarsh," touched its soul : it was left to John 
Ruskin to do both. 1 

1 This great writer was first acknowledged as such by our big quar- 
terlies, in the North British Review, fourteen years ago, as follows : — 



NOTES ON ART. 455 

" This is a very extraordinary and a very delightful book, full of 
truth and goodness, of power and beauty. If genius may be con- 
sidered (and it is as serviceable a definition as is current) that power 
by which one man produces for the use or the pleasure of his fellow- 
men, something at once new and true, then have we here its unmis- 
takable and inestimable handiwork. Let our readers take our word 
for it, and read these volumes thoroughly, giving themselves up to the 
guidance of this most original thinker, and most attractive writer, and 
they will find not only that they are richer in true knowledge, and 
quickened in pure and heavenly affections, but they will open their 
eyes upon a new world — walk under an ampler heaven, and breathe 
a diviner air. There are few things more delightful or more rare, 
than to feel such a kindling up of the whole faculties as is produced by 
such a work as this ; it adds a ' precious seeing to the eye,' — makes 
the ear more quick of apprehension, and, opening our whole inner- 
man to a new discipline, it fills us with gratitude as well as admira- 
tion towards him to whom we owe so much enjoyment. And what 
is more, and better than all this, everywhere throughout this work, 
we trace evidences of a deep reverence and godly fear — a perpetual, 
though subdued acknowledgment of the Almighty, as the sum and 
substance, the beginning and the ending of all truth, of all power, of 
all goodness, and of all beauty. 

" This book (Modern Painters) contains more true philosophy, more 
information of a strictly scientific kind, more original thought and 
exact observation of nature, more enlightened and serious enthusiasm, 
and more eloquent writing, than it would be easy to match, not merely 
in works of its own class, but in those of any class whatever. It gives 
us a new, and we think, the only true theory of beauty and sublimity ; 
it asserts and proves the existence of a new element in landscape- 
painting, placing its prince upon his rightful throne; it unfolds and 
illustrates, with singular force, variety, and beauty, the laws of art; it 
explains and enforces the true nature and specific function of the im- 
agination, with the precision and fulness of one having authority, — 
and all this delivered in language which, for purity and strength and 
native richness, would not have dishonored the early manhood of 
Jeremy Taylor, of Edmund Burke, or of the author's own favorite 
Richard Hooker." — J. B. 



456 NOTES ON ART. 



BEAUTY, ABSOLUTE AND RELATIVE. 

We are not now going to try our 'prentice hand upon 
a new theory of Beauty, after so many masters have 
failed ; but we cannot help thinking that the dispute 
would be at an end if it were but allowed at once, that 
there are two kinds of beauty, that there is a material 
and necessary element of beauty, and another which is 
contingent and relative — a natural and a spiritual de- 
lightfulness to and through the eye ; and that sometimes 
we see both together, as in the face and eyes of a beauti- 
ful and beloved woman ; and moreover, that there is no 
more reason for denying either the sense or the emotion 
of beauty, because everybody does not agree about the 
kind or measure of either of these qualities in all objects, 
than there is for affirming that there is no such thing as 
veracity or natural affection, because the Spartans com- 
mended lying, and the Cretians practised it, or the New 
Zealanders the eating of one's grandmother. Why should 
the eye, the noblest, the amplest, the most informing of 
all our senses, be deprived of its own special delight ? 
The light is sweet, and it is a pleasant thing for the eye 
to behold the sun ; and why, when the ear has sound for 
informing, and music for delight — when there is smell 
and odor, taste and flavor, and even the touch has its 
sense of pleasant smoothness and softness — why should 
there not be in the eye a pleasure born and dying with 
the sights it sees ? it is like the infinite loving-kindness 
of Him who made the trees of the garden pleasant to the 
eye as well as good for food. We say nothing here of 
Relative or Associative Beauty, — this has never been 



NOTES OK ART. 457 

doubted either in its essence or its value. It is as much 
larger in its range, as much nobler in its meaning and 
uses, as the heavens are higher than the earth, or as the 
soul transcends the body. This, too, gives back to ma- 
terial beauty more than it received : it was after man was 
made, that God saw, and, behold, everything was very 
good. 

Our readers may perhaps think we make too much of 
imagination as an essential element — as the essential 
element — in Art. With our views of its function and 
its pervading influence in all the ideal arts, we can give 
it no other place. A man can no more be a poet or 
painter in the spiritual and only true sense without im- 
agination, than an animal can be a bird without wings ; 
and as, other things being equal, that bird can be longest 
on the wing and has the greatest range of flight which 
has the strongest pinions, so that painter is likely to have 
the farthest and keenest vision of all that is within the 
scope of his art, and the surest and most ample faculty 
of making known to others what he himself has seen, 
whose imagination is at once the most strong and quick. 
At the same time, if it be true that the body without 
the spirit is dead, so it is equally true that the spirit with- 
out the body is vain, ineffectual, fruitless. Imagination 
alone can no more make a painter or a poet than wings 
can constitute a bird. Each must have a body. Unfor- 
tunately, in painting we have more than enough of body 
without spirit. Correct drawing, wonderful imitative 
powers, cleverness, adaptiveness, great facility and dex- 
terity of hand, much largeness of quotation, and many 
material and mechanical qualities, all go to form an 
amusing, and, it may be, useful spectacle, but not a true 
picture. We have also, but not so often, the reverse of 



458 NOTES ON ART. 

all this, — the vision without the faculty, the soul with- 
out the body, great thoughts without the power to em- 
body them in intelligible forms. He, and he alone, is a 
great painter, and an heir of time, who combines both. 
He must have observation, — humble, loving, unerring, 
unwearied ; this is the material out of which a painter, 
like a poet, feeds his genius, and " makes grow his 
wings." There must be perception and conception, both 
vigorous, quick and true ; you must have these two 
primary qualities, the one first, the other last, in every 
great painter. Give him good sense and a good memory, 
it will be all the better for him and for us. As for prin- 
ciples of drawing and perspective, they are not essential. 
A man who paints according to a principle is sure to 
paint ill ; he may apply his principles after his work is 
done, if he has a philosophic as well as an ideal turn. 



THE END. 






YBtttQJS^v 



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Complete Poetical Works. In Blue and Gold. 2 vols. 

$1.50. 

Poetical Works. 2 vols. 16mo. Cloth. $1.50. 
Sir Launfal. New Edition. 25 cents. 
A Fable for Critics. New Edition. 50 cents. 
The Biglow Papers. New Edition. 63 cents. 
Fireside Travels. In Press. 

Nathaniel Hawthorne. 

Twice-Told Tales. Two volumes. $1.50. 

The Scarlet Letter. 75 cents. 

The House of the Seven Gables. $1.00. 

The Snow Image, and other Tales. 75 cents. 

The Blithedale Romance. 75 cents. 

Mosses from an Old Manse. 2 vols. $1.50. 

The Marble Faun. 2 vols. $1.50. 

True Stories. 75 cents. 

A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys. 75 cents. 

Tanglewood Tales. 88 cents. 

Edwin P. Whipple. 

Essays and Reviews. 2 vols. $2.00. 
Lectures on Literature and Life. 63 cents. 
Washington and the Revolution. 20 cents. 

Charles Kingsley. 

Two Years Ago. A New Novel. $1.25. 

Amyas Leigh. A Novel. $1.25. 

Glaucus ; or, the Wonders of the Shore. 50 cts. 

Poetical Works. 75 cents. 

The Heroes ; or, Greek Fairy Tales. 75 cents. 

Andromeda and other Poems. 50 cents. 

Sir Walter Raleigh and his Time, &c. $1.25. 

New Miscellanies. 1 vol. $1,00. 



by TlCKNOR AND FlELDS. 5 

Mrs. Howe. 

Passion Flowers. 75 cents. 

Words for the Hour. 75 cents. 

The World's Own. 50 cents. 

A Trip to Cuba. 1 vol. 16mo. 75 cents. 

George S. Hillard. 

Six Months in Italy. 1 vol. 16mo. $1.50. 

Dangers and Duties of the Mercantile Profes- 
sion. 25 cents. 

Selections from the Writings of Walter Savage 
Landor. 1 vol. 16mo. 75 cents. 

Oliver Wendell Holmes. 

Elsie Yenner : a Romance of Destiny. 2 vols. Cloth. $1.75. 

Poems. With fine Portrait. Cloth. $1.00. 

Astr^ea. Fancy paper. 25 cents. 

The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table. With Il- 
lustrations by Hoppin. 16mo. $1.00. 

The Same. Large Paper Edition. 8vo. Tinted paper. $3.00. 

The Professor at the Breakfast Table. 16mo. 
$1.00. 

The Same. Large Paper Edition. 8vo. Tinted paper. $3.00. 

Songs in Many Keys. A new volume. $1.25. 

Currents and Counter-Currents, and other Medi- 
cal Essays. 1 vol. Cloth. $1.25. 

Ralph Waldo Emerson. 

Essays. 1st Series. 1 vol. $1.00. 
Essays. 2d Series. 1 vol. $1.00. 
Miscellanies. 1 vol. $1.00. 
Representative Men. 1 vol. $1.00. 
English Traits. 1 vol. $1.00. 
Poems. 1 vol. $1.00. 
Conduct of Life. 1 vol. $1.00. 



6 A Lift of Books Publifhed 

Goethe. 

Wilhelm Meister. Translated by Carlyle. 2 vols. $2.50. 
Faust. Translated by Hay ward. 75 cents. 
Faust. Translated by Cliarles T. Brooks. $1.00. 
Correspondence with a Child. Bettina. 1 vol. 12mo. 

$1.25. 

Henry Giles. 

Lectures, Essays, &c. 2 vols. $1.50. 
Discourses on Life. 75 cents. 
Illustrations of Genius. Cloth. $1.00. 

John G. Whittier. 

Pocket Edition of Poetical Works. 2 vols. $1.50. 

Old Portraits and Modern Sketches. 75 cents. 

Margaret Smith's Journal. 75 cents. 

Songs of Labor, and other Poems. Boards. 50 cts. 

The Chapel of the Hermits. Cloth. 50 cents. 

Literary Recreations, &c. Cloth. $1.00. 

The Panorama, and other Poems. Cloth. 50 cents. 

Home Ballads and Poems. A new volume. 75 cents. 

Capt. Mayne Reid. 

The Plant Hunters. With Plates. 75 cents. 

The Desert Home : or, The Adventures of a Lost 

Family in the Wilderness. With fine Plates. $1.00. 
The Boy Hunters. With fine Plates. 75 cents. 
The Young Voyageurs : or, The Boy Hunters in 

the North. With Plates. 75 cents. 
The Forest Exiles. With fine Plates. 75 cents. 
The Bush Boys. With fine Plates. 75 cents. 
The Young Yagers. With fine Plates. 75 cents. 
Ran Away to Sea : An Autobiography for Boys. 

With fine Plates. 75 cents. 
The Boy Tar: A Voyage in the Dark. A New 

Book. With fine Plates. 75 cents. 
Odd People. With Plates. 75 cents. 
The Same. Cheap Edition. With Plates. 50 cents. 
Bruin : or, The Grand Bear Hunt. With Plates. 75 cts. 



u 


a 


75 cents. 


a 


a 


75 cents. 


a 


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75 cents. 


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75 cents. 



by TlCKNOR AND FlELDS. 7 

Rev. F. W. Robertson. 

Sermons. First Series, $1.00. 

" Second " $1.00. 

" Third " $1.00. 

" Fourth " $1.00. 

Lectures and Addresses on Literary and Social 

Topics. $1.00. 

Mrs. Jameson. 

Characteristics of Women. Blue and Gold. 75 cents. 

Loves of the Poets. 

Diary of an Ennuyee. 

Sketches of Art, &c. 

Studies and Stories. 

Italian Painters. 

Legends of the Madonna. 

Sisters of Charity. 1 vol. 16mo. 75 cents. 

Grace Greenwood. 

Greenwood Leaves. 1st and 2d Series. $1.25 each. 

Poetical Works. With fine Portrait. 75 cents. 

History of my Pets. With six fine Engravings. Scarlet 
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Recollections of my Childhood. With six fine En- 
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Haps and Mishaps of a Tour in Europe. $1.25. 

Merrie England. 75 cents. 

A Forest Tragedy, and other Tales. $1.00. 

Stories and Legends. 75 cents. 

Stories from Famous Ballads. Illustrated. 50 cents. 

Bonnie Scotland. Illustrated. 75 cents. 

Mrs. Mo watt. 

Autobiography of an Actress. $1.25. 
Plays. Armand and Fashion. 50 cents. 
Mimic Life. 1 vol. $1.25. 
The Twin Roses. 1 vol. 75 cents. 



8 A Lift of Books Publifhed 



Samuel Smiles. 

Life of George Stephenson, Engineer. $1.00. 
Self Help ; with Illustrations of Character and 

Conduct. With Portrait. 1 vol. 75 cents. 
Brief Biographies. With Plates. Si. 25. 

Miss Cummins. 

El Fureidis. By the Author of " The Lamplighter," &c. 

$1.00. 



Thomas Hughes. 



School Days at Rugby. By An Old Boy. 1 vol. 16mo. 

$1.00. 

The Same. Illustrated edition. Si. 50. 

The Scouring of the White Horse, or the Long 
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Tom Brown at Oxford. A Sequel to School Days at 
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$2.00. 

Frar^ois Arago. 

Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men. 

16mo. 2 vols. $2.00. 

Bayard Taylor. 

Poems of Home and Travel. Cloth. 75 cents. 
Poems of the Orient. Cloth. 75 cents. 
A Poet's Journal. In Press. 

John Neal. 

True Womanhood. A Novel. 1 vol. Si. 25. 

Hans Christian Andersen. 

The Sand-Hills of Jutland. 1 vol. 16mo. 75 cents. 



by TlCKNOR AND FlELDS. 9 



R. H. Dana, Jr. 

To Cuba and Back, a Vacation Voyage, by the Author of 

" Two Years before the Mast." 75 cents. 



Miscellaneous Works in Poetrv and 

Prose. 

[poetry.] 

Alford's (Henry) Poems. 1 vol. 16mo. Cloth. Si. 00. 
Angel in the House: The Betrothal. 1 vol. 16mo. 

Cloth. 75 cents. 
" " The Espousals. 1 vol. 16mo. 

Cloth. 75 cents. 
Arnold's (Matthew) Poems. 1 vol. 75 cents. 
Aytoun's Bothwell. A Narrative Poem. 1 vol. 75 

cents. 
Bailey's (P. J.) The Mystic. 1 vol. 16mo. Cloth. 
50 cents. 
" » The Age. 1 vol. 16mo. Cloth. 75 

cents. 
Barry Cornwall's English Songs and other 

Poems. 1 vol. $1.00. 
" " Dramatic Poems. 1 vol. $1.00. 

Boker's Plays and Poems. 2 vols. 16mo. Cloth. 

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Brooks' German Lyrics. 1 vol. $1.00. 

" Faust. A new Translation. 1 vol. $1.00. 

Browning's (Robert) Poems. 2 vols. $2.00. 

" " Men and Women. 1 vol. $1.00. 

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Fresh Hearts that Failed. By the Author of " The 

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" AVOLIO AXD OTHER POEMS. 1 Vol. 16mO. 

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" u Rimini. 1 vol. 50 cents. 

Hymns of the Ages. 1 vol. Enlarged edition. $1.25. 
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The Same. 8vo. Bevelled boards. Each volume, $3.00. 
Johnson's (Rosa V) Poems. 1 vol. $1.00. 
Kemble's (Mrs.) Poems. 1 vol. $1.00. 



io A Li§l of Books Publifhed 



Lockhart's (J. G.) Spanish Ballads. With Portrait. 

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" " Julia. 1 vol. 50 cents. 

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Massey's (Gerald) Poems. 1 vol. Blue and Gold. 75 

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Memory and Hope. A Collection of Consolatory Pieces. 

lvol. $2.00. 
Motherwell's Poems. 1 vol. Blue and Gold. 75 cts. 
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cents. 
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" Dante's Inferno. Translated. In Press. 
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Quincy's (J. P.) Charicles. A Dramatic Poem. 1 vol. 
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Read's (T. Buchanan) Poems. New and complete edi- 
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Rejected Addresses. By Horace and James Smith. 

New edition. 1 vol. 63 cents. 
Saxe's (J. G.) Poems. With Portrait. 1 vol. 75 cents. 
" " The Money King and other Poems. 

With new Portrait. 1 vol. 75 cents. 
" " Poems — the two foregoing vols, in one. 

31.25. 
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Portrait. 75 cent*. 

Smith's (Alexander) Life Drama. 1 vol. 50 cents. 

" " City Poems. 1 vol. 63 cents. 

" " Edwin of Deira. With Por- 

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Stoddard's (R. H.) Poems. 1 vol. 63 cents. 

" " Songs of Summer. 1 vol. 75 cts. 

Sprague's (Charles) Poetical and Prose Works. 

With Portrait. 1 vol. 88 cents. 
Thackeray's Ballads. 1 vol. 75 cents. 
Thalatta. A Book for the Seaside. 1 vol. 75 cents. 
Tuckerman's Poems. 1 vol. 75 cents. 
Warreniana. 1 vol. 63 cents. 

[prose.] 
Allston's Monaldi. A Tale. 1 vol. 16mo. Cloth. 

75 cents. 



by TlCKNOR AND FlELDS. 11 



Arnold's (Dr. Thomas) Ltfe and Correspondence. 

Edited by A. P. Stanley. 2 vols. 12mo. Cloth. $2.00. 

Arnold's (W. D.) Oakfield. A Novel. 1 vol. 16mo. 
Cloth. $1.00. 

Almost a Heroine. By the Author of " Charles Au- 
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Arabian Days' Entertainment. Translated from the 
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Addison's Sir Roger de Coverley. From the " Spec- 
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The Same. 1 vol. 16mo. Cloth, gilt edge. Si. 25. 

Angel Voices ; or, Words of Counsel for Over- 
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The Same. Holiday Edition. Tinted paper. 50 cents. 

American Institute of Instruction. Lectures deliv- 
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Bacon's (Delia) the Shaksperian Problem Solved. 
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Bartol's Church and Congregation. 1 vol. 16mo. 

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Bailey's Essays on Opinions and Truth. 1 vol. 

16mo. Cloth. $1.00. 

Barry Cornwall's Essays and Tales in Prose. 

2 vols. SI. 50. 

Boston Book. Being Specimens of Metropolitan Litera- 
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Buckingham's (J. T.) Personal Memoirs. With Por- 
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Channing's (E. T.) Lecturks on Rhetoric and Ora- 
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Channing's (Dr. Walter) Physician's Vacation. 
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Coale's (Dr. W. E.) Hints on Health. 1 vol. 16mo. 
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Combe on the Constitution of Man. 30th edition. 
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Chapel Liturgy. Book of Common Prayer, according 
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The Same. Cheaper edition. 1 vol. 12mo. Sheep, $1.50. 

Crosland's (Mrs.) Lydia : A Woman's Book. 1 vol. 

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" " English Tales and Sketches. 

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Crosland's (Mrs.) Memorable Women. Illustrated. 
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12 A Lift of Books Publifhed 



Dana's (R. H.) To Cuba and Back. 1 vol. 16mo. 

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Dufferin's (Lord) Yacht Voyage. 1 vol. 16mo. 

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El Fureidis. By the author of " The Lamplighter." 
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Ernest Carroll ; or, Artist-Life in Italy. 1 vol. 
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Fremont's Life, Explorations, and Public Ser- 
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Gaskell's (Mrs.) Ruth. A Novel. 8vo. Paper. 38 cts. 

Guesses at Truth. By Two Brothers. 1 vol. 12mo. 

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Greenwood's (F. W. P.) Sermons of Consolation. 

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" History of the King's Chapel, Bos- 

ton. 12mo. Cloth. 50 cents. 
Hodson's Soldier's Life in India. 1 vol. 16mo. Cloth. 

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Howitt's (William) Land, Labor, and Gold. 2 vols. 

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" " A Boy's Adventures in Austra- 

lia. 75 cents. 

Howitt's (Anna Mary) An Art Student in Munich. 

$1.25. 

" " A School of Life. A Story. 

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Hufeland's Art of Prolonging Life. 1 vol. 16mo. 

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Jerrold's (Douglas) Life. Bv his Son. 1 vol 16mo. 

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" " Wit. By his Son. 1 vol. 16mo. 

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Judson's (Mrs. E. C.) Alderbrook. By Fanny For- 
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" " The Kathayan Slave, and 

other Papers. 1 vol. 63 cents. 
" " My two Sisters : A Sketch 

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Kavanagh's (Julia) Seven Years. 8vo. Paper. 30 

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Kingsley's (Henry) Geoffry Hamlyn. 1 vol. 12mo. 

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Krapf's Travels and Researches in Eastern 

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Leslie's (C. R.) Autobiographical Recollections. 

Edited by Tom Taylor. With Portrait. 1 vol. 12mo. Cloth. 
$1.25. 



by TlCKNOR AND FlELDS. 13 



Lake House. From the German of Fanny Lewald. 

1 vol. 16mo. Cloth. 75 cents. 
Lowell's (Rev. Dr. Charles) Practical Sermons. 

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Light on the Dark River; or, Memoirs of Mrs. 

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Lee's (Mrs. E. B.) Memoir of the Buckminsters. 

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Mademoiselle Mori: A Tale of Modern Rome. 1 vol. 
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14 A Li§t of Books Publifhed 



Otis's (Mrs. H. G.) The Barclays of Boston. 1 vol. 

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Parsons's (Theophilus) Life. By his Son. 1 vol. 12mo. 

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Prescott's History of the Electric Telegraph. 

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Poore's (Ben Perley) Louis Philippe. 1 vol. 12mo. 

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Bab and his Friends. By John Brown, M. D. Illus- 
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Sala's Journey Due North. 1 vol. 16mo. Cloth. 

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Scott's (Sir Walter) Ivanhoe. In one handsome vol- 
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Sidney's (Sir Philip) Life. By Mrs. Davis. 1 vol. 
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Shelley Memorials. Edited by the Daughter-in-law 
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Sword and Gown. By the Author of " Guy Living- 
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Shakspear's (Captain H) Wild Sports of India. 
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Smith's (William) Thorndale ; or, The Conflict 
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Sumner's (Charles) Orations and Speeches. 2 vols. 

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St. John's (Bayle) Village Life in Egypt. 2 vols. 16mo. 

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The Solitary of Juan Fernandez. By the Author of 

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Trelawny's Recollections of Shelley and Byron. 

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Thoreau's Walden : A Life in the Woods. 1 vol. 

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Warren's (Dr. John C.) Life. By Edward Warren, 

M. D. 2 vols. 8vo. $3.50. 
" " The Preservation of Health. 

1 vol. 38 cents. 



by TlCKNOR AND FlELBS. 15 



Wallis's (S. T.) Spain and her Institutions. 1 vol. 

16mo. Cloth. $1.00, 

Wordsworth's (William) Biography. By Dr. Chris- 
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Wensley: A Story without a Moral. 1 vol. 16mo. 
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In Blue and Gold. 

Longfellow's Poetical Works. 2 vols. $1.75. 

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Tennyson's Poetical W t orks. 2 vols. $1.50. 
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Horace. Translated by Theodore Martin. 1 vol. 75 cts. 
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16 A Lift of Books Publifhed. 



Works lately Published. 

Cecil Dreeme. By Theodore Winthrop. With Biograph- 
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Sermons Preached in Harvard Chapel. By James Walker. 
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The Sable Cloud. By Nehemiah Adams, D. D., Author 
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Faithful Forever. By Coventry Patmore, Author of 
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Over the Cliffs : A Novel. By Charlotte Chanter, 
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The Recreations of a Country Parson. 2 vols. 
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Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character. 
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Poems by Rev. Wm. Croswell, D. D. Edited, with a 
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Personal History of Lord Bacon. From Original 
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Favorite Authors : A Companion Book of Prose and 
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Heroes of Europe. A capital Boy's Book. With 16 
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Bonnie Scotland. By Grace Greenwood. Illustrated. 
75 cents. 

The Seven Little Sisters, who live in the Round Ball 
that floats in the Air. Illustrated. 63 cents. 



III! 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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